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Some deal: Iran will soon be able to kill 90 percent of our population

August 13, 2015

Some deal: Iran will soon be able to kill 90 percent of our population, Newsday, Lawrence J. Hass, August 13, 2015

Iran has tested how to conduct an EMP attack, such as by attaching a nuclear weapon to an orbiting satellite or launching a nuclear-armed missile into the atmosphere from a ship.

Iranian military leaders have endorsed an EMP attack against America, according to secret Iranian military documents that Pentagon officials have translated, and the Pentagon’s North American Aerospace Defense Command is moving back into Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado because it can resist an EMP attack.

Those who, in light of this deal and Iran’s missile and EMP work, nevertheless dismiss the “Death to America” threats from Iran as just political rhetoric might heed the words of former Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban: “It is our experience that political leaders do not always mean the opposite of what they say.”

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Just four days after U.S.-led global powers and Iran completed their nuclear deal, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, reaffirmed the “Death to America” mantra that has pervaded his regime since its establishment in 1979, stating, “The entire country is under the umbrella of this great movement.” Iran has killed hundreds of Americans in the Middle East, both directly and through its terrorist proxies. It has threatened U.S. regional interests by funding anti-Israeli terrorists, propping up Syria’s terror-backing Bashar al-Assad and de-stabilizing U.S.-backed governments.

Moving forward, this deal will enable Tehran to threaten U.S. security more directly in at least two ways: First, Iran could deploy a nuclear warhead on one of its ballistic missiles and fire it at the United States. Iran is building increasingly sophisticated ballistic missiles, with its Shahab-3 able to reach Israel, and the Sejjil that it’s developing capable of reaching Italy and Poland.

Tehran also announced plans to build missile silos in what experts consider a precursor to deploying longer range missiles.

Second, Iran could detonate a nuclear device over the United States in an electromagnetic pulse attack that destroys our electric grid, putting the nation in the dark for months and eventually leaving 90 percent of Americans dead from disease or starvation.

Iran has tested how to conduct an EMP attack, such as by attaching a nuclear weapon to an orbiting satellite or launching a nuclear-armed missile into the atmosphere from a ship.

Iranian military leaders have endorsed an EMP attack against America, according to secret Iranian military documents that Pentagon officials have translated, and the Pentagon’s North American Aerospace Defense Command is moving back into Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado because it can resist an EMP attack.

That Iran can develop nuclear weapons under the deal, making these two scenarios plausible, is clear; the only question is when.

For starters, the deal is time-limited and, as restrictions end in 10-15 years, Iran can pursue two paths to a bomb – enriching uranium to weapons-grade levels or building plutonium-producing reactors, or both.
But Tehran need not wait that long because international inspectors will be hard-pressed to confirm that Iran is abiding by the deal’s restrictions on how much uranium it’s enriching, how many centrifuges it’s operating, and what it may be doing at secret sites that the world has not yet discovered.

That’s because rather than “anywhere, anytime” inspections, Iran will have 24 days to comply with requests from the International Atomic Energy Agency to visit a suspected undeclared site, during which Iran can move, hide, or destroy evidence of its nuclear progress.

If Iran refuses to allow a site visit after 24 days, global leaders likely would begin further negotiations with Iran that would give the latter weeks more to clean up a site.

But Tehran need not wait that long because international inspectors will be hard-pressed to confirm that Iran is abiding by the deal’s restrictions on how much uranium it’s enriching, how many centrifuges it’s operating, and what it may be doing at secret sites that the world has not yet discovered.

That’s because rather than “anywhere, anytime” inspections, Iran will have 24 days to comply with requests from the International Atomic Energy Agency to visit a suspected undeclared site, during which Iran can move, hide, or destroy evidence of its nuclear progress.

If Iran refuses to allow a site visit after 24 days, global leaders likely would begin further negotiations with Iran that would give the latter weeks more to clean up a site.

Nor, under this deal, must Tehran reveal the military-related dimensions of its nuclear work to date, leaving the world dangerously ignorant of how close it already is to developing and deploying a nuclear weapon and also leaving inspectors without a baseline against which to judge Iranian compliance in the future.

Moreover, the $100 billion to $150 billion in sanctions relief will give Iran a huge windfall to develop a more robust infrastructure for nuclear weapons production – either quickly by evading the weak inspections regime or more patiently by waiting about a decade until the world frees Iran of all restrictions.

Those who, in light of this deal and Iran’s missile and EMP work, nevertheless dismiss the “Death to America” threats from Iran as just political rhetoric might heed the words of former Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban: “It is our experience that political leaders do not always mean the opposite of what they say.”

Categories: Department of Defense, Diplomacy, Dishonor, EMP attack, Foreign policy, IAEA, Iran nuke inspections, Iran scam, Iranian EMPs, Iranian military sites, Iranian missiles, Iranian Threats, Israel, Kerry, Obama, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, P5+1
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The Iran-North Korea Axis of Atomic Weapons?

August 13, 2015

The Iran-North Korea Axis of Atomic Weapons? Forbes Opinion, Claudia Rosett, August 13, 2015

(I have been beating this drum for years and this is among the best articles on the subject I have read. It is clearly past time for the Obama Administration to “come clean” on what it knows about the Iran – North Korea axis. Congress should reject the current “deal” with Iran if it does not do so, fully and promptly. — DM)

President Obama has been telling Congress and the American public that the Iran nuclear deal — the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — “cuts off all Iran’s pathways to the bomb.” That’s not true. One of the most dangerous aspects of this deal is that it does not sever the longtime alliance between Tehran and Pyongyang. If there has indeed been cooperation between these two regimes on nuclear weapons, it’s time not only for Iran to come clean, but for the Obama administration to stop covering up.

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As U.S. lawmakers debate the Iran nuclear deal, they are rightly concerned about Iran’s refusal to disclose its past work on nuclear weapons. Not only does this refusal deprive inspectors of a baseline for monitoring Iran’s compliance; it also deprives Congress of information about the networks that Iran’s regime might most readily employ should it choose to secretly continue its quest for  the nuclear bomb.

On that note, it should also concern Congress that Tehran is not alone in hiding information on Iran’s history of developing nuclear weapons. Whatever President Obama and his negotiating team might know about such matters, they have been — to put it mildly — less than diligent about informing the American public.

An honest accounting would quite likely reveal something that many press reports have alleged, but U.S. administration officials have never publicly confirmed: A history of nuclear weapons collaboration between Iran and nuclear-proliferating North Korea.

Don’t take my word for it. Let us turn instead to an in-depth article published on August 4, 2003 by a staff writer of the Los Angeles Times under the headline “Iran Closes In on Ability to Build a Nuclear Bomb.” The reporter was no junior correspondent. The article was the product of a three-month international investigation by a veteran investigative reporter, previously a member of a Pulitzer-Prize winning team at the New York Times, Douglas Frantz.

Drawing on “previously secret reports, international officials, independent experts, Iranian exiles and intelligence sources in Europe and the Middle East,” Frantz wrote that “North Korean military scientists recently were monitored entering Iranian nuclear facilities. They are assisting in the design of a nuclear warhead, according to people inside Iran and foreign intelligence officials.”

Frantz added: “So many North Koreans are working on nuclear and missile projects in Iran that a resort on the Caspian coast is set aside for their exclusive use.”

Perhaps Frantz should recycle that article to Secretary of State John Kerry, who while testifying to a congressional panel last month was asked about its allegations by Rep. Christopher Smith, and ducked the question.

Frantz might have a better chance of getting Kerry’s attention; Frantz now works for Kerry. In 2009, then-Senator Kerry hired Frantz as deputy staff director and chief investigator of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Frantz returned briefly to newspaper work in 2012, as national security editor of The Washington Post. Frantz was then hired once again to work under Kerry, this time at the State Department, where Frantz has worked since 2013 as Assistant Secretary in charge of the Bureau of Public Affairs.

At State, Frantz’s portfolio includes engaging “domestic and international media to communicate timely and accurate information with the goal of furthering U.S. foreign policy and national security interests as well as broadening understanding of American values.”

But it appears that as a State Department advocate of a free and well-informed press, Frantz himself is not free to answer questions from the press about his own reporting on North Korea’s help to Iran in designing a nuclear warhead. The State Department has refused my repeated requests to interview Frantz on this subject. Last year, an official at State’s Bureau of Public Affairs responded to my request with an email saying, “Unfortunately Assistant Secretary Frantz is not available to discuss issues related to Iran’s nuclear program.” This June I asked again, and received the emailed reply: “This is indeed an important topic for Doug, but he feels that speaking about his past work would no longer be appropriate, since he is no longer a journalist.”

The real issue, of course, is not the career timeline of Douglas Frantz, but the likelihood, past and future, of nuclear collaboration between Iran and North Korea. Frantz may no longer be a journalist, but it’s hard to see why that should constrain him, or his boss, Secretary Kerry, from speaking publicly about important details of Iran’s illicit nuclear endeavors — information which Frantz in his incarnation as a star journalist judged credible enough to publish in a major newspaper.

If Frantz needs to protect his sources, by all means let him do so. He need not name his contacts inside Iran, or the “foreign intelligence officials” who gave him his scoop. If Frantz’s story was accurate, then presumably the administration has its own sources for such information. Recall that in June, with reference to Iran’s past work on nuclear weapons — the “possible military dimensions” of its nuclear program — Kerry told reporters “We know what they did. We have no doubt. We have absolute knowledge with respect to the certain military activities they were engaged in.”

So, what precisely were those activities, and Congress might want to ask Frantz, or his boss, Secretary of State Kerry, if information available to the U.S. administration supports Frantz’s story of North Korean-Iran collaboration on nuclear warheads. If so, then surely it’s time for the administration to lift the classified veil and share the blockbuster details not only with Congress, but with American voters — who deserve to know a lot more of the history that might yet shape the future of this “historic” Iran nuclear deal.

Of course, the real problem for the Obama administration is that an officially confirmed story of Iran-North Korea collaboration on nuclear warheads could spell further trouble for winning congressional approval of this nuclear deal. North Korea is a rogue state which despite sanctions has long served as a munitions back shop for Iran. If that business has included tutorials on nuclear warhead design, that is very bad news. North Korea has already conducted three nuclear tests, has been threatening a fourth, and appears to be producing bomb fuel — both plutonium and highly enriched uranium — for a nuclear arsenal which by the estimates of various experts could within a few years include dozens of warheads. Under the Iran nuclear deal, Iran would emerge with a lot more money to browse such wares.

According to public statements this year by a number of senior U.S. military officials, North Korea has also acquired the ability –untested, but dangerous — to mount miniaturized nuclear warheads on ballistic missiles. In other words, North Korea is becoming a full service shop for nuclear weapons, including the materials and technology to make them and the means to deliver them.

North Korea has a long record of peddling its weapons and related technology abroad, from conventional arms to missiles to the notorious caper in which North Korea helped Iran’s client state, Syria, build an entire clandestine nuclear reactor for no apparent use except to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons (that reactor was nearing completion when it was destroyed in 2007 by an Israeli air strike). Iran and North Korea are longtime allies, veteran smugglers and since the early days of Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution have been prolific partners in weapons traffic.

Nor has Frantz been the only journalist to report that Iran and North Korea have worked together on nuclear weapons. For years, there have been reports in the media of Iranian officials attending North Korean nuclear tests, and North Koreans turning up at nuclear weapons research facilities in Iran. In testimony July 28th at a joint subcommittee hearing of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, a former Congressional Research Service specialist on Asia, Larry Niksch, provided a list of respected news services that have published stories on Iran-North Korea nuclear cooperation. Among them were Reuters, Germany’s Der Spiegel and Suddeutsche Zeitung, Japan’s Kyodo News and Sankei Shimbun. and Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald. Broadly, these stories have cited sources such as foreign intelligence agencies and Iranian defectors.

The staple element missing from this picture is any official U.S. confirmation that Iran and North Korea have worked together on nuclear matters. The Obama administration has confirmed dealings between Iran and North Korea in conventional arms and missiles. But, as Niksch stated, “On nuclear collaboration there has been a virtual blackout of public information.”

When asked about allegations of Iran-North Korea nuclear ties, Obama administration officials either retreat behind the classified veil, or deflect the question. A standard response is that they take such allegations “seriously” and will look into them. From that process, to date, no significant public information has emerged.

The likely reason for this cone of silence is that for more than two decades, American presidents have tried to defang first North Korea’s nuclear program, and now Iran’s, by concocting nuclear deals that don’t hold up. In the process, Presidents Clinton, Bush (in his second term) and now President Obama, have each in turn tried to minimize disclosures that could derail their various nuclear deals. The unfortunate result is that instead of stopping nuclear proliferation, they have collectively run cover for some of the most virulent ties between Iran and North Korea. In doing so, they have deprived the American public of information important to assessing any nuclear deal with either North Korea or Iran.

Some secrecy may be necessary to protect intelligence sources and methods. That should not excuse any American president or his team from failure to alert the public to the extent of the Iran-North Korea connection, or refusal to comment in any meaningful way on allegations of nuclear weapons cooperation between Tehran and Pyongyang.

President Obama has been telling Congress and the American public that the Iran nuclear deal — the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — “cuts off all Iran’s pathways to the bomb.” That’s not true. One of the most dangerous aspects of this deal is that it does not sever the longtime alliance between Tehran and Pyongyang. If there has indeed been cooperation between these two regimes on nuclear weapons, it’s time not only for Iran to come clean, but for the Obama administration to stop covering up.

Categories: Department of Defense, Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, Iran - North Korea axis, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Kerry, North Korea, North Korean missiles, North Korean nukes, Obama, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, P5+1, U.S. Congress
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Contentions | The Iran Deal’s Evaporating Logic

August 11, 2015

Contentions | The Iran Deal’s Evaporating Logic, Commentary Magazine, , August 11, 2015

Proponents of the Iran nuclear deal are finding the justifications for compelling Congress to ratify the accord, save for preserving Barack Obama’s fragile self-image, are coming apart. As such, the accord’s supporters have increasingly turned to defending the deal with appeals to the president’s stature and authority, as well as by calling into question the motives and character of its opponents. That alone should tell you all you need to know. Though some of the Iran nuclear deal’s remaining backers do still occasionally claim that it will succeed in what was once its singular purpose: limiting Iran’s ability to produce prohibited armaments. One of most convincing precedents supporting this contention has, however, been largely disaffirmed. 

When asked to cite a model to demonstrate how the nuclear deal will not only prevent Iranian from developing a fissionable device but also produce a variety of happy byproducts like the moderation of the Islamic Republic’s destabilizing behavior, the deal’s supporters most frequently point to the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty with the Soviet Union.

“From the Western perspective, the nuclear deal represents the most important security agreement since the signing of the Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles (INF) Treaty between Washington and Moscow during the twilight years of the Cold War,” Al Jazeera columnist Richard Javad Heydarian averred.

Peter Beinart took this contention an ill-advised step further. “By 1987, Reagan had signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, the most sweeping arms-control deal of the Cold War. His rhetoric toward the Soviet Union also radically changed,” Beinart wrote in The Atlantic. “Reagan, in other words, dramatically de-escalated the Cold War long before he knew Gorbachev would let Eastern Europe go free and at a time when prominent conservatives were literally calling him Neville Chamberlain for signing the INF deal.”

That’s true. Graham Allison, also writing in The Atlantic, quoted a few conservatives from the period that feared Reagan was providing the Soviets with a reprieve from the crushing obligations of the arms race. “Reagan insisted that he was capable of brokering agreements to reduce the risks of accidents or unauthorized actions that risked nuclear war with one hand, while redoubling his efforts to undermine the Soviet regime with the other,” he insisted. “And he did just that. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.”

This is a remarkable simplification of history. Beinart claims that Regan’s shifting rhetoric (he renounced his “evil empire” comment while standing in the middle of Red Square under the watchful eye of a young Vladimir Putin) provided Mikhail Gorbachev space to make the case to the Politburo that he was not capitulating to Reagan in this accord. But this is a variation of the liberal case that ideational and not material considerations led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Moreover, the INF effectively marked the end of the arms race, in part because it had already been lost by the Soviets. By contrast, there has been no ideational shift in the theocratic regime in Tehran nor is there any indication in Iran’s behavior that it is desirous of rapprochement with the West. If anything, Iran has behaved in a more bellicose fashion as nuclear negotiations with the P5+1 intensified.

The USSR is long gone, but the INF remains in place. Opponents of the Iran nuclear deal are advised to pay close attention to what that arrangement has become. It is no longer an arms control agreement but a political relic that serves little purpose but to shield from public scrutiny the extent to which Russia has become an irresponsible and revanchist international actor.

Writing in Politico Magazine in April, Foreign Policy Initiative scholars Eric Edelman and Tzvi Kahn outline the scope of the Russian’s efforts to game the INF. In response to Russia’s brazenness, American officials have routinely downplayed Moscow’s cheating. Despite repeatedly warning the United States that it was prepared to violate the INF over the course of the last decade, the Bush administration refused to acknowledge that reality. When Moscow did violate the terms of the INF in this decade, the Obama administration also pretended not to notice. And when this administration finally did address Russia’s violations of the terms of the INF, that acknowledgement was not followed on with any consequences.

That failure of resolve continues even today. According to the Washington Free Beacon’s Bill Gertz, a Pentagon assessment last month revealing the extent of Russia’s violations of the INF paints a damning picture of the Kremlin’s behavior. Unfortunately for anyone who would like to fully understand how Russia has undermined the INF, the White House is allegedly blocking that report’s release.

“Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee, disclosed the existence of the Pentagon assessment last month and said the report is needed for Congress’ efforts to address the problem in legislation,” Gertz reported. “Rogers said the assessment was conducted by chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey, and noted that it outlines potential responses to the treaty breach.”

To acknowledge the treaty’s failure would provide additional political legitimacy to an effort by House Republicans that seeks to provide funding for short-range cruise missile defenses in Poland and Romania. That’s a direct repudiation of this White House, which continues to stand by its 2009 rejection of a Bush-era deal that would have provided the Czech Republic and Poland with long-range interceptor and radar technology. In short, politics is dictating American national defense planning and strategy.

“Similarly, for decades, Tehran has violated its nuclear commitments — and the United States has failed to hold it accountable,” Edelman and Kahn observed.

There is no evidence to suggest that regime as demonstrably duplicitous as Iran’s will not cheat on this arrangement. In fact, the terms of this deal would make it difficult to definitively identify cheating, much less to marshal support for an international response to it. Even if such behavior could be identified, though, it’s not entirely clear that this administration (or its successor, presuming the next administration is a Democratic one) will be predisposed to punish Iranian cheating at all. To acknowledge the fact that the nuclear deal with Iran has failed would be to invite searing criticism from the deal’s domestic opponents.

The INF is a treaty in a persistent vegetative state; it’s corporal form remains, but its spirit has long since passed on to another plane. A conventional arms race in Eastern Europe has taken its place. If the West were to acknowledge that arms race, it would be obliged to participate in it. So it simply refuses to acknowledge it. If the Iran deal fails, its proponents in Washington are unlikely to ever say as much. Not until it is too late.

Categories: Appeasement, Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Obama, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, P5+1, Russia, Russian missiles, U.S. Congress, U.S. politics, USSR
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Obama vs. the Jews

August 11, 2015

Obama vs. the Jews, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, August 11, 2015

21obama

Even in the extremely unlikely circumstance that enough Democrats would come together to veto the deal, Obama had already told the agreement’s leading Democratic opponent in the House, “If Congress overrides my veto, you do not get a U.S. foreign policy that reflects that vote. What you get is you pass this law and I, as president, will do everything possible to go in the other direction.”

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It was his birthday and Obama was grouchy.

“It’s my birthday and I’m going to be blunt,” Obama told the Jewish leaders meeting with him. When they complained that, “Words have consequences, and when they come from official sources, they can be even more dangerous,” he was unapologetic. 

“If you guys would back down, I would back down from some of the things I’m doing,” he warned.

By that he meant that if they stopped objecting to the Iran deal, he would stop accusing critics of his nuclear sellout to Iran of being money-grubbing warmongers.

Obama complained, “It’s been a really busy day. You’d think they’d be nicer to me on my birthday.”

His busy day had consisted of a meeting with the ineffectual UN Secretary General, lunch with Biden and a photo op in the East Room. But he also had reservations at Rose’s Luxury, an expensive Capitol Hill restaurant where ordinary people wait for hours to get in.

Rose’s doesn’t take reservations, but Obama was an exception.

Shortly after his meeting with Jewish leaders, he and his close Iranian-born adviser Valerie Jarrett skipped the line at Rose’s and got the party started. On the next day, Obama blasted Republican opponents as treasonous allies of those who chant “Death to America,” even though he was the one who had actually made common cause with Iran’s regime.

The day after that, Senator Schumer called Obama to tell him he would oppose the deal and asked him to let him announce it on Friday. The White House instead leaked it to the Huffington Post.  The first response to Schumer’s announcement came from MoveOn, which blew the dog whistle loudly enough to be heard in the next state over, “Our country doesn’t need another Joe Lieberman in the Senate.”

The only obvious thing that both politicians had in common was that they were Jewish.

Obama had lost the argument on the facts. The majority of Americans opposed the deal by 52 to 28 percent. Even among Democrats, support stood at only 52 percent.

His game plan for winning the debate was to get as ugly and dirty as possible.

Despite having just gotten back into Iraq, after contemplating an attack on Syria and coming off an illegal assault on Libya, any Democrat opposing him risked being accused of wanting another Iraq War. Or as White House press secretary Josh Earnest coyly put it, “This difference of opinion that emerged overnight is one that has existed between Senator Schumer and President Obama for over a decade.”

Obama allies emphasized that Schumer had voted for the Iraq War. Obama was once again rerunning his old campaign against Biden and Hillary, even though one was his VP and the other his successor.

Barack Obama had already rolled out the “lonely little guy in the White House” playbook complaining about lobbies and money. He had been irked at his representatives not getting full access to the AIPAC activists who were visiting members of Congress and was reading from Bush I’s old script. But now he began to sound more like Pat Buchanan ranting about Israel’s “amen corner” beating the drums for war.

Having forgotten the time he sent his campaign consultants to defeat Netanyahu in the Israeli election, he complained that Netanyahu was inappropriately interfering. During his speech, he rediscovered a love for the Constitution which he claimed obligated him to sideline Israel. Sadly he lacked the same love for the Constitution’s Treaty Clause which requires two-thirds of the Senate to ratify a treaty.

The complaints about lobbies and money sounded strange coming from a guy who had his own SuperPAC with tens of millions of dollars to spend. Behind him was a network of organizations with hundreds of millions of dollars in cash on hand and billionaire donors to donate on demand.

The Rockefeller Brothers Fund had invested a fortune into the project. Some of the money went into the Ploughshares Fund, which did its own promotion for the deal, and funneled cash to Global Zero, which released a video promoting the deal featuring Jack Black and Morgan Freeman.  His position was backed by George Soros’ J Street, an astroturfed anti-Israel group that was bringing serious money to the party.

Once Schumer came out on the deal, he was targeted by Credo Mobile and MoveOn, among other powerful left-wing groups, determined that nothing would be allowed to interfere with Iran’s nukes.

There was no shortage of lobbies and money in Obama’s corner. The citizen activists opposed to the deal might have the support of the American people, but they were outmatched by the massive wealth and infrastructure of the Democracy Alliance and Obama’s mainstream media allies.

The teachers, mothers, engineers and small businessmen could travel to Washington D.C. and complain to their Congressman. Obama could go on the Daily Show and complain about them to Jon Stewart.

There was no comparing their respective power.

And all that was without mentioning the Iran Lobby which boasted close relationships with Joe Biden and John Kerry.

Obama continued to escalate tensions with the Jewish community, even though he faced no real risk that enough Democrats would come together to override his veto. Even Schumer’s rejection had bent over backward to praise and flatter him. The American people might disapprove of the deal, but they had also disapproved of ObamaCare and his illegal war in Libya. And he had just rolled over them.

The administration wasn’t in this fight because it worried that it might lose. Between the GOP establishment and Obama, the game had already been rigged. Everyone, including Schumer, would play their parts, get their applause and the agreement would move forward. Hundreds of AIPAC members lobbying a few members of Congress wouldn’t stop that. Neither would a few ads.

Even in the extremely unlikely circumstance that enough Democrats would come together to veto the deal, Obama had already told the agreement’s leading Democratic opponent in the House, “If Congress overrides my veto, you do not get a U.S. foreign policy that reflects that vote. What you get is you pass this law and I, as president, will do everything possible to go in the other direction.”

Obama would implement the deal no matter what Congress did. Iran would get its nukes.

But for Obama, scowling and impatiently tapping his fingers while waiting to go for his birthday dinner, musing that he could have already been there if it wasn’t for these old white men whining to him, looking forward to his round of golf and a trip to Camp David, it had become petulantly personal.

For the left, the political is often indistinguishable from the personal, and for Obama it has always been that way. Obama’s view of government is Louis XIV’s “I am the State”. All opposition is personal. All dissent is treason. Enemies have to be punished on the principle of the thing.

It didn’t matter that the Jewish leaders had zero chance of actually stopping his agreement with Iran. Most of them didn’t even want to be there. What mattered was that they had opposed him and they had to be punished for it.

Obama had compared Americans uneasy about Iran’s “Death to America” slogan to schoolyard bullies who wanted to “smack around” the “little guy” who dared to “mouth off.” But he was the one playing the bully, going out of his way to sow tension, using rhetoric condemned even by Jewish supporters of the deal, not because he needed it to win, but because he was angry and resentful.

Millions of Jews around the world saw the specter of an atomic cloud rising into the sky, but Obama had a birthday meal at Rose’s Luxury to go to, a round of golf to play and his feelings were being hurt and his birthday was being ruined by these annoying Jews who wouldn’t take “No” for an answer.

Obama isn’t even stirring up anti-Semitism to defend the Iran deal. He’s lashing out, accusing critics of being traitors and warmongers, because they ruined his birthday party.

Categories: Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Israel, Kerry, Netanyahu, Obama, Obama's America, Obama's anti-semitism, Obama's legacy, P5+1, U.S. Congress
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What Iran’s hostile reaction to the Parchin issue means for the nuclear deal

August 11, 2015

What Iran’s hostile reaction to the Parchin issue means for the nuclear deal, Washington Post, David Albright, August 10, 2015

The United States and Congress should clearly and publicly confirm, and Congress should support with legislation, that if Iran does not address the IAEA’s concerns about the past military dimensions of its nuclear programs, U.S. sanctions will not be lifted. To do otherwise is to make a mockery of the nuclear deal.

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Chico Marx said: “Who you gonna believe? Me or your own eyes?” Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said over the weekend that my organization, the Institute for Science and International Security, was spreading lies when we published satellite imagery that showed renewed, concerning activity at the Parchin military site near Tehran. This site is linked by Western intelligence and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to past work on nuclear weapons. But like Chico, instead of acknowledging the concern, the Iranians chose to deny the visible evidence in commercial satellite imagery. Iran’s comments would be mirthful if the topic were not so serious.

Zarif is also calling U.S. intelligence officials and members of Congress liars. They are the original source of the information both about renewed activity at Parchin and concerns about that activity. All we did was publish satellite imagery showing this activity and restate the obvious concern.

Moreover, this information about renewed activity at Parchin does not come from opponents of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action negotiated between the United States, five other world powers and Iran, as Zarif suggested. We are neutral on whether the agreement should be implemented and have made that position clear for weeks. The U.S. intelligence community is hardly opposed to the deal. Iran’s attempts to dismiss this concern as the work of the deal’s foes also is just wrong.

Concern about Parchin has become more urgent now that there is a debate raging over whether the IAEA will have adequate access to this site under the terms of its deal with Iran. It would be irresponsible not to worry about reports that suggest that Iran could be again sanitizing the site to thwart environmental sampling that could reveal past nuclear weapons activities there. This concern is further heightened because Iran has demanded to do this sampling itself instead of letting the IAEA do it. Such an arrangement is unprecedented and risky, and will be even more so if Iran continues to sanitize the site. In the cases of the Iranian Kalaye Electric site and the North Korean plutonium separation plant at Yongbyon, the success of sampling that showed undeclared activities depended on samples being taken at non-obvious locations identified during previous IAEA visits inside buildings. The IAEA will not be able to visit Parchin until after the samples are taken, and it remains doubtful that the inspectors will be able to take additional samples.

Some of this can be written off to Zarif’s volatility. At one point during the negotiations, he yelled so loudly at Secretary of State John F. Kerry that those outside the room could hear him. He obviously angers easily. But he is also one of the more reasonable Iranian government officials. I can remember in the late 1990s discussions with Iranian government and nuclear officials in New York where the Iranians vehemently stated, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that they did not have any gas centrifuge programs. I was presenting the evidence that they did, in fact, have a centrifuge program, one in fact aided by Pakistan, and at one of these meetings, Zarif quietly said to me that he had always told me that Iran had the entire fuel cycle — technical language admitting to an enrichment program. His willingness to admit the obvious gave me hope that the crisis over Iran’s program could be solved diplomatically. But on Parchin, his words appear to reflect Iranian government intransigence on its past nuclear weapons program. Its action is an assault on the integrity and prospects of the nuclear deal.

Iran’s reaction shows that it may be drawing a line at Parchin. Resolving the Parchin issue is central to the IAEA’s effort to resolve concerns about Iran’s past work on nuclear weapons by the end of the year, but Parchin is not the only site and activity involved in this crucial issue. The IAEA needs to visit other sites and interview a range of scientists and officials. Instead of allowing this needed access, Iran appears to be continuing its policy of total denial, stating that the concerns are merely Western falsifications and fantasies. The United States recently reasserted that it believes Iran had a nuclear weapons program and stated that it knows a considerable amount about it. So, if Iran sticks to its strategy, one can expect an impasse that includes Iran refusing to allow the IAEA the access it needs to sites and scientists within the coming months.

U.S. officials have stated that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action requires Iran to address concerns about its past work on nuclear weapons prior to the lifting of sanctions. However, Iran may argue otherwise, and one could easily conclude that its recent actions are the start of such a reinterpretation of the agreement. The United States and Congress should clearly and publicly confirm, and Congress should support with legislation, that if Iran does not address the IAEA’s concerns about the past military dimensions of its nuclear programs, U.S. sanctions will not be lifted. To do otherwise is to make a mockery of the nuclear deal.

Categories: Appeasement, Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, IAEA, Ideology, Iran - secret deal, Iran centrifuges, Iran nuke inspections, Iran scam, Iranian military sites, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Javad Zarif, Kerry, Obama, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, P5+1, Parchin, U.S. Congress
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Israel is working at speed to convert Boeing 767 into a long-flight refueling tanker

August 10, 2015

Israel is working at speed to convert Boeing 767 into a long-flight refueling tanker, DEBKAfile, August 10, 2015

kc46aAmerica Boeing KC-46A refueling tanker

In an interview published by the German newspaper Der Spiegel on Aug. 8, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said: “Ultimately it is very clear, one way or another, Iran’s military nuclear program must be stopped. We will act in any way, including taking military action, and are not willing to tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran. We prefer that this be done by means of sanctions, but in the end, Israel should be able to defend itself.”

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US defense and air industry sources report that the Israeli Air Force may give up on the US Boeing’s KC-46A Pegasus as its future refueling tanker for long-range flights because of delays in its delivery. Israel had first planned to take the Pegasus to replace its converted Boeing 707 when delivery was first to the US Air Force was scheduled for August 2017. But this week, the company put the date back by another eight months and the price increased by half a billion dollars.

American sources point out that if Israel wants to retain the option of attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities when Barack Obama exits the White House in January 2017, it can’t wait for the brand-new US Pegasus tanker, which doubles as a military transport plane, to come off the Boeing production line and be delivered to its air force. The Boeing 707 in current service, after a multibillion investment in its conversion to a long-flight refueling tanker, no longer meets the fluctuating conditions in the Middle East. Work is therefore going ahead on the conversion of the Boeing 767 as its replacement.

On July 22, DEBKAfile’s military sources revealed a mammoth transaction for Iran to purchase Russian UL78 MK1 (Midas) tankers with a range of 7,300km. (The distance from Iran to Israel is 1,200km). Each tanker is capable of spontaneously feeding 6-8 fighter craft.

This purchase represented Tehran’s aspiration – not just to draw level with Israel but to outdo its air force in range and fueling capability. This transaction no doubt spurred the decision by Israel’s defense chiefs to go ahead on its own project, instead of waiting for the American KC-46A to become available.
Israel Aerospace Industries [IAI] is therefore working at top speed on the Boeing 767, a long-range, wide-body, twin-engine jet airliner with a range of 7,000 to 11,000 km. The converted aircraft will be designated 767-200ER MRTT.

In an interview published by the German newspaper Der Spiegel on Aug. 8, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said: “Ultimately it is very clear, one way or another, Iran’s military nuclear program must be stopped. We will act in any way, including taking military action, and are not willing to tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran. We prefer that this be done by means of sanctions, but in the end, Israel should be able to defend itself.”

Categories: Defense of Israel, IDF, Iran / Israel War, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Iranian Threats, Israel, Obama, Obama's America, P5+1
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The profs who love Obama’s Iran deal

August 10, 2015

The profs who love Obama’s Iran deal, Front Page Magazine, Cinnamon Stillwell, August 10, 2015

1.29.13-ayatollah-ali-khamenei

Meet the Mullahs’ academic cheerleaders.

Who supports the Obama administration’s increasingly unpopular Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) aimed ostensibly at curbing Iran’s nuclear program? Many of its strongest proponents come from the field of Middle East studies, which boasts widespread animus towards the U.S. and Israel along with a cadre of apologists for the Iranian regime determined to promote ineffectual diplomacy at all costs.

University of California, Riverside creative writing professor Reza Aslan concedes that his generation of Iranian-Americans “feel[s] far removed from the political and religious turmoil of the Iranian revolution” before falling in line with the Iranian regime’s propaganda: the deal will “empower moderates in Iran, strengthen Iranian civil society and spur economic development,” and create “an Iran that is a responsible actor on the global stage, that respects the rights of its citizens and that has warm relations with the rest of the world.” “Warm relations” are the least likely outcome of the increase in funding for Iran’s terrorist proxies Hamas and Hezbollah that even President Obama admits will follow the easing of sanctions.

Flynt Leverett, an international relations professor at Pennsylvania State University, whitewashes these terrorist groups as “constituencies” and “communities” which the Iranian regime “help[s] organize in various ways to press their grievances more effectively,” effective terrorism being, for Leverett, a laudable goal.  Characterizing the regime as “a rising regional power” and “legitimate political order for most Iranians,” he urges the U.S., through the JCPOA, to “come to terms with this reality.”

Diablo Valley College Middle East studies instructor Amer Araim’s seemingly wishful thinking is equally supportive of Tehran’s line: “it is sincerely hoped that these funds will be used to help the Iranian people develop their economy and to ensure prosperity in that country.” Meanwhile, Hooshang Amirahmadi, an Iranian-American international relations professor at Rutgers University, attempts to legitimize the regime by delegitimizing the sanctions: “The money that will flow to Iran under this deal is not a gift: this is Iran’s money that has been frozen and otherwise blocked.”

Others deny the Iranian regime intends to build a nuclear bomb. University of Michigan history professor Juan Cole has “long argued that [Iran’s leader Ali] Khamenei is sincere about not wanting a nuclear weapon” because of his “oral fatwas or legal rulings” indicating that “using such weapons is contrary to Islamic law.” His unwarranted confidence in the regime leads him to conclude:

[T]hey have developed all the infrastructure and technical knowledge and equipment that would be necessary to make a nuclear weapon, but stop there, much the way Japan has.

Evidently, Cole has no problem with a tyrannical, terrorist-supporting regime that seeks regional hegemony on the threshold of becoming a nuclear power.

Likewise, William Beeman, an anthropology professor at the University of Minnesota, maintains that, “It was . . .  easy for Iran to give up a nuclear weapons program that never existed, and that it never intended to implement.” Like Cole, he uncritically accepts and recites the regime’s disinformation: “Iran’s leaders have regularly denounced nuclear weapons as un-Islamic.”

Beeman—who, in previous negotiations with the Iranian regime, urged the U.S. to be “unfailingly polite and humble” and not to set “pre-conditions” regarding its nuclear program—coldly disregards criticism of the JCPOA for excluding conditions such as the “release of [American] political prisoners” and “recognition of Israel,” calling them “utterly irrelevant.” No doubt the relatives of those prisoners and the Israeli citizens who live in the crosshairs of the regime’s continued threats of annihilation would disagree.

A number of academics have resorted to classic anti-Semitic conspiracy mongering to attack the deal’s Israeli and American opponents, calling them the “Israel Lobby.” Muqtedar Khan, director of the Islamic Studies Program at the University of Delaware, accuses “the Israeli government and all those in the U.S. who are under the influence of its American lobbies” of obstructing the deal, claiming that, “The GOP congress is now being described as the [Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin] Netanyahu congress.”

Hatem Bazian, director of the Islamophobia Research & Documentation Project at the University of California, Berkeley, takes aim at “pro-Israel neo-conservatives,” “neo-conservative warmongers,” “AIPAC,” and (in a mangled version of “Israel-firster”) “Israel’s first D.C. crowd” for “attempting to scuttle the agreement.” Asserting a moral equivalence between the dictatorial Iranian regime and the democratically-elected Israeli government, Bazian demands to know when Israel’s “pile of un-inspected or regulated nuclear weapons stockpile” will be examined before answering, “It is not going to happen anytime soon!” That Israel has never threatened any country with destruction, even after being attacked repeatedly since its rebirth, is a fact ignored by its critics.

The unhinged Facebook posts of Columbia University Iranian studies professor and Iranian native Hamid Dabashi reveal in lurid language his hatred of Israel:

It is now time the exact and identical widely intrusive scrutiny and control compromising the sovereignty of the nation-state of Iran and its nuclear program be applied to the European settler colony of Jewish apartheid state of Israel and its infinitely more dangerous nuclear program! There must be a global uproar against the thuggish vulgarity of Netanyahu and his Zionist gangsters in Israel and the U.S. Congress to force them to dismantle their nuclear program–systematically used to terrorize and murder Palestinian people and steal the rest of Palestine!

Elsewhere, Dabashi attacks adversaries of the JCPOA, including “Israel, Saudi Arabia, the U.S. Neocons, and their treacherous expat Iranian stooges masquerading as ‘Opposition,’” calling them a “terrorizing alliance,” a “gang of murderous war criminals,” and “shameless warmongers.”

Willful blindness to Iran’s brutal, terrorist-supporting regime, moral equivocation, and an irrational hatred for Israel and the West characterize the fawning support enjoyed by the mullahs from these and other professors of Middle East studies. In place of objective, rigorously researched plans for countering Iran’s aggression and advancing the safety of America and its allies, they regurgitate the crudest propaganda from Teheran. Until their field of study is thoroughly reformed, their advice—such as it is—should and must be utterly ignored.

Categories: Academia, Antisemitism, Culture, Death to America, Fatwa, Foreign policy, Ideology, Iran scam, Iranian anti-semitism, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Iranian Threats, Islamic supremacy, Islamism, Islamophobia, Israel, Khamenei, Obama, Obama's America, P5+1, Theocracy, U.S. politics
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“Death to America” Falling on Obama’s Deaf Ears

August 10, 2015

“Death to America” Falling on Obama’s Deaf Ears, American Thinker, Eileen F. Toplansky, August 10, 2015

(Please see also, It’s Not Just Iran’s Hardliners Saying ‘Death to America.’  — DM)

The Iranian curriculum is based on an Iranian-style Islam called the New Islamic Civilization (NIC).  The battle between good and evil, which is to be waged on a global scale, “is the responsibility of each Iranian citizen,” and “it begins with defense.”  America is seen as “arrogant,” and “any kind of freedom of speech, political debate or appreciation of Iranian culture or values other than those espoused by the regime are intolerable[.]”

[T]reating Iran as a normal country instead of one that inculcates acts of aggression is extraordinarily dangerous.

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We are well past the point where we can ever believe Obama the man because, as those prescient about Obama’s background instinctively understood, whatever was taught  Obama the child is what is now being reflected in his dangerous anti-American actions.

Thus, the 17th-century Jesuit-inspired quotation of “give me the child, and I will mold the man” remains true.

This is why the idea that one can trust the Iranians is not only naive, but extraordinarily dangerous, given the education of their children.  In the May 2015 Special Interim Report entitled “Imperial Dreams: The Paradox of Iranian Education” by Eldad J. Pardo, the incessant propagandizing and intimidation of Iranian students is proof positive that they are being primed to attack those whom their leaders deem the enemy.  The first page of the report shows the map of a “New Dreams of World Power” with Iran at the center.  Underneath this map is a picture of “Iranian children preparing for martyrdom.”

Lest one think this is unthinkable, recall the fact that Iran and its proxies regularly send their children as suicidal bombers.  Thus, as Pardo recounts, the Iranian education curriculum includes “the ambition to impose Iranian hegemony on the world; a culture of militarism and jihad; blind obedience and martyrdom; and hostility and paranoia toward foreigners.”

In fact, “jihad war is unending,” and “the frenzied rush toward the end-of-time’s ‘horrifying battle'” is the lifeblood of continuous jihad.

The backdrop to all this education is the idea that Iran is committed to “total struggle for the creation of a just world order” and that such a “condition will remain until the coming of the Mahdi, the Shiite Messiah[.]”  The messianic ideal here is quite different from what most Westerners believe; that it is ignored will be a fatal mistake.  And Obama knows this, which is why Americans must stomach, yet again, his “compendium of demagoguery, historical revisionism and outright lying.”

Iranian students understand that “possible martyrdom on a massive scale and for which they practice from the first grade – could be launched as part of an Iranian ‘attack on countries ruled by oppressive governments.'”  Moreover, Iranian students study about “dissimulation” (taqiyya) and “misleading the enemy.”  They learn that “in time of need, dissimulation and  temporary pacts – even with ‘un-Godly, idolatrous governments’ – are proper (but only until such time as the balance of power should change).”  The idea of sacrifice is “constantly instilled in them,” as evidenced by the Teacher’s Guide for Persian, Grade 3 text.  Never is there any concern with the “human wave assault,” which includes many sacrificed schoolchildren.  Instead, enthusiasm for military participation is promoted in the first grade, for six-year-olds.

Surely Obama’s many Muslim Brotherhood advisers would have informed him of taqiyya, and since Obama early on learned the tenets of Islam, this is part of his worldview.  Whether one believes he is a pathological liar or not, the fact remains that Obama defends the Iranian deal with falsehoods and slurs.  Moreover, he recently exploited American college students at American University, much as his Iranian counterparts abuse their own children with incessant misinformation and propaganda.

The Iranian educational curriculum makes much of the Aryan-Shiite basis of Iranian identity wherein the Allies, and not Nazi Germany, are vilified, and, of course, the Holocaust is completely avoided.  Hence, the unremitting cries of “Death to Israel” fall on ears already primed to hate the Jew.  Furthermore, in echoes of Nazism, “children are instructed not to obey their parents in matters regarding martyrdom,” and pictures of soldiers are amply sprinkled in the textbooks.

This is of little concern to Obama, who has been surrounded by anti-Semites for many years.  The anti-Jewish hatred does not disturb him, nor does it deter him.  While Caroline Glick asserts that Obama maintains that “an anti-Semite is someone who refuses to recognize the 3,000-year connection between the Jews and the Land of Israel,” and “an anti-Semite is also someone who refuses to recognize the long history of persecution that the Jewish people suffered in the Diaspora,” this is hardly a ringing endorsement of ensuring that no harm will come to the Jewish people.  Acknowledging a connection to a piece of land is not the same as making certain that that land is not blown to smithereens.

The Iranian curriculum is based on an Iranian-style Islam called the New Islamic Civilization (NIC).  The battle between good and evil, which is to be waged on a global scale, “is the responsibility of each Iranian citizen,” and “it begins with defense.”  America is seen as “arrogant,” and “any kind of freedom of speech, political debate or appreciation of Iranian culture or values other than those espoused by the regime are intolerable[.]”

In essence, the “school textbooks prepare the entire Iranian population for a constant state of emergency, requiring Iranians to foment revolutions throughout the world, particularly across the Middle East, while evil arrogant enemies – who hate Iran and Islam – scheme against them.”  In fact, texts emphasize the martyrdom of women as well as cyber warfare tactics.  Most importantly, “students learn that no checks are needed on the Supreme Leader’s authority, including his right to sanctify new weapons” (italics mine).  Blind obedience to the Supreme Leader is mandatory.

In a Grade 11 Iranian text, students are enjoined to understand that jihad “covers a range of meanings including killing, massacring, murdering and fighting,” and jihad “permits its use against anyone, anywhere.”  There is “defensive jihad,” which refers to an “enemy transgressing the border or city of the Muslims, or defense of one’s own or other’s life, honor and property.”  Thus, as Muslims gain in number in American cities, it is clear that defensive jihad can be used, especially since defensive jihad is seen as a warfare that is “gradual” and that can be “military and sometimes cultural,” since it “sometimes aims at conquering a land or part of it and sometimes aims at political-economic control.”

Then there is “internal jihad,” which “represents a war with outlawed people who implement rebellion and disobedience as well as armed uprisings.”  Western ideas of freedom will be relegated to the dustbin of history, and those who desire it will be annihilated.

Finally there is “elementary jihad,” which at first glance sounds familiar to Western ears.  It is “defined as an attack on countries ruled by oppressive governments that do not allow free religious activities or freedom to listen to the call of religion.”  But there is no freedom of religion in Iran.  It can be only Islam.  There is no room for any other ideas.  And, in fact, “non-Islamic moral constraints” have no impact as Hezb’allah, Iran’s Lebanese proxy, or any other Islamic-inspired group engages in jihad.

Thus, as Jeffrey Herf writes, treating Iran as a normal country instead of one that inculcates acts of aggression is extraordinarily dangerous.  This is a war of ideas – whose will remain supreme?  In essence, Obama is painting a bull’s-eye on America, and not on Iran, who continues the “Death to America” chant on a regular basis.  And while Mona Charen claims that “Obama doesn’t take the Iranian chant seriously,” I, for one, beg to disagree.

 

Categories: Diplomacy, Dishonor, Education, Foreign policy, Human rights, Iran scam, Iranian anti-semitism, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, Iranian Threats, Islamic jihad, Islamic supremacy, Islamism, Israel, Khamenei, Obama, Obama's affinity for Islam, Obama's legacy, Obama's motivations, P5+1, Theocracy
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No Trust, No Verification, No Sanctions: Obama’s Humiliating Capitulation to the Mullahs

August 8, 2015

No Trust, No Verification, No Sanctions: Obama’s Humiliating Capitulation to the Mullahs, National Review, Andrew C. McCarthy, August 8, 2015

(I have been beating this drum for quite a while. So have others. The Obama administration’s position still makes no sense whatever, unless unfortunate motives are attributed to the Commander in Chief. — DM)

The sanctions regime President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry vowed to step up has already collapsed. The mullahs are already scooping up billions in unfrozen assets and new commerce, and they haven’t even gotten the big payday yet. Obama’s promises of “anytime, anywhere” inspections have melted away as Tehran denies access and the president accepts their comical offer to provide their own nuclear-site samples for examination. Senator John Barasso (R., Wyo.), a medical doctor, drew the apt analogy: It’s like letting a suspect NFL player what he says is his own urine sample and then pronouncing him PED-free.#

And now even the Potemkin verification system has become an embarrassing sham, with Iran first refusing to allow physical investigations, then declining perusal of documentation describing past nuclear work, and now rejecting interviews of relevant witnesses.

Recall that administration officials indignantly assured skeptics that there would be no agreement in the absence of Iran’s Iran’s coming clean on the “past military dimensions” of its nuclear work. As Kerry put it, “They have to do it. It will be done. If there’s going to be a deal; it will be done.”

The reason it had to be done is obvious. According to Obama, his Iran deal is built on verification, not trust — at least when the president is not trusting Ayatollah Khamenei’s phantom anti-nuke fatwa. Plainly, it would be impossible to verify whether Iran was advancing toward the weaponization of nuclear energy — whether it had shortened the “breakout time” the elongation of which, Obama claims, is the principal objective of his deal — unless one knew how far the mullahs had advanced in the first place

But now, in open mockery of an American president they know is so desperate to close this deal he will never call their bluff, the mullahs have told the International Atomic Energy Agency to pound sand — although not sand in Iran, where the IAEA is not permitted to snoop around. Tehran is steadfastly refusing to open its books, and the IAEA sheepishly admits that it cannot answer basic questions about Iran’s programs and progress.

So what does Team Obama do? Do they, as they promised, walk away from an unverifiable and thus utterly indefensible deal that lends aid and comfort to our enemies? Of course not. Now they’re out there telling Americans, “We don’t need this IAEA program to discover whether or not Iran was pursuing a nuclear weapon — they were,” as Senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Obamabot, told the Wall Street Journal.

Well good for you, Sherlock; Obama, Kerry, and Hillary Clinton may still be hanging on that fatwa, but you hit the bull’s-eye.

Here’s the thing, though, Senator Murphy: Yes, all of us know the Iranians, as you cheerily put it, “were” pursuing a nuclear weapon — especially all of us who oppose Obama’s Iran deal and who recognize that the jihadist regime has waged war against us since 1979, killing thousands of Americans. But you “let’s make a deal” guys told us your objective was to uncover how far along they “were” and to roll back their progress. (Actually, you used to tell us your objective was to prevent them from getting nuclear weapons, period — as in “if you like your health-care plan, you can keep your health-care plan, period.”)

If you don’t have a baseline from which to begin verification, you can’t verify the time of day, much less the progress of nuclear research, development, procurement, and experimentation. Iran is saying we don’t get the baseline without which the Obama administration guaranteed there would be no agreement.

So in the grand deal our president describes as subjecting the mullahs to historically rigorous inspection, disclosure, and verification requirements, there is no inspection, no disclosure, and no verification.

And did I mention no sanctions?

On July 29, Kerry assured lawmakers that Iranian Quds Force commander “Qassem Soleimani will never be relieved of any sanctions.” Soleimani orchestrates the regime’s terrorist operations and, according to the Pentagon, is responsible for killing at least 500 American soldiers in Iraq.

Yet, only five days before Kerry gave that testimony, Soleimani traveled to Russia for meetings with Putin’s government — notwithstanding the vaunted sanctions that, Kerry would have us believe, confine him to Iran.

Russia, of course, is a member of the U.N. Security Council, from which Obama sought and obtained endorsement of his Iran deal before seeking congressional review. Not only has Russia rendered the current sanctions a joke; it has made Obama’s implausible promise of future “snapback” sanctions against Iran even more laughable. Russia, by the way, has also agreed to build yet another nuclear reactor for the mullahs in Busheir — which Obama’s deal obligates the United States to protect against sabotage. And Putin has also just agreed to supply the terrorist regime in Tehran with $800 million worth of S-300 anti-aircraft missiles that can be used against the U.S. Air Force and have enough range to strike planes in northern Israel.

What a deal, Mr. President!

Actually, we really don’t know quite what a deal it is because key provisions remain secret. After its bold verification promises, the Obama administration was too embarrassed to reveal exactly how pathetic the agreement’s inspections provisions are. So, as I outlined in a recent column, Obama and Kerry tucked them into a secret side deal between Iran and the IAEA. It then twaddled that the details — i.e., the heart of the deal from the American perspective — are, conveniently, between Iran and the IAEA. None of our business, you see.

This message was reiterated on Capitol Hill this week by the IAEA. Understand: The IAEA could not function (to the limited extend it does function) without the United States Congress’s underwriting of 25 percent of its budget — the American taxpayer contribution dwarfs that of every other country, including Iran’s, which is tiny. Yet, the IAEA chief told lawmakers that he could not reveal the agreement between his agency and Tehran because that is “confidential” information, disclosure of which would compromise the IAEA’s “independence.” The only things the IAEA would confirm are that (a) there are verification provisions and (b) Iran is not cooperating with them.

Feel better?

Well, to further improve your mood, let’s talk the Corker bill. Remember, that’s the legislation by which the GOP-controlled Congress reversed the constitutional presumption against international agreements and virtually assured that Obama’s Iran deal — no matter how appalling it may be, no matter how much aid and comfort if provides to the enemy — will become law.

Why on earth would Beltway Republicans agree to anything so catastrophic for the national security that the Constitution’s Treaty Clause is designed to protect? Because, they proclaimed, by making this devil’s bargain, they would ensure that Congress and the American people got full disclosure of the Iran deal that Obama would otherwise shroud in secrecy.

But as I asked at the time, what possessed them to think Obama would not shroud the agreement in secrecy just because there would now be a law forbidding that?

Supporters are telling themselves that the Corker bill’s benefits [include that] the president will have to produce the agreement. . . . But this is a mirage. . . . The president is notoriously lawless, and thus Republicans can have no confidence that the agreement he produces to Congress will, in fact, be the final deal he signs off on with Iran and, significantly, submits to the U.N. Security Council for an endorsing resolution.

And so it has come to pass: Republicans forfeited their constitutional power for an unenforceable promise of transparency from an infamously duplicitous backroom dealer. Now they have no power and no idea what they’ve enabled.

The president had it backwards Wednesday when, in his repulsively demagogic speech on the Iran deal, he said that Republicans are aligned with the Iranian chanting ‘Death to America.’” It is Obama who is aiding and abetting the hardliners. Republicans have merely aided and abetted Obama.

Categories: Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, IAEA, Iran nuke inspections, Iran scam, Iranian economy, Iranian military sites, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Kerry, Obama, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, P5+1, Soleimani, U.S. Congress
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IAEA chief stonewalls Congress

August 7, 2015

IAEA chief stonewalls Congress, Power Line, Paul Mirengoff, August 6, 2015

Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency Alliance (IAEA) came to Capitol Hill yesterday to try to reassure members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about the Iran nuclear deal. Amano wanted to convince Senators that the private side deals between Iran and the IAEA aren’t problematic and shouldn’t lead Congress to reject the deal.

There was just one problem: Amano couldn’t provide any details about his agency’s confidential arrangement to examine Iran’s nuclear research to see if the mullahs are trying to develop a nuclear weapon. “There were many questions on this issue,” Amano reported. “I repeated that I am not authorized to share or discuss confidential information.”

Amano might therefore just as well have stayed home. According to Committee chairman Bob Corker, “most members left here with greater concerns about the inspection regime than they came in with.”

Corker’s Democratic counterpart, ranking Democrat Benjamin Cardin of Maryland, also expressed disappointment. “I think there are provisions in the document that relate to the integrity of the review,” he said, stating the obvious.

Amano’s justification for not disclosing this vital information doesn’t seem to wash. He protests that the credibility of his agency depends on confidentiality. Yet, Wendy Sherman, the lead U.S. negotiator of the Iran deal, says she has seen documents relating to the side agreements between Iran and the IAEA. As Senator Corker asked, “if Wendy has been able to read it, why can’t we read it?”

But it doesn’t really matter whether Amano has good reasons for not telling Congress what’s in the side agreements. As Sen. Cardin says, these agreements go to the integrity of inspections, and the integrity of inspections goes to viability of the deal (though even under the best inspections possible, the deal doesn’t prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear state in the “out years”).

It’s reasonable to suspect, moreover, that provisions pertaining to the integrity of inspections we farmed out to the IAEA because the U.S. couldn’t get Iran to accept language that (a) it considered necessary or, more likely, (b) it knew Congress would see as vital.

If Congress isn’t permitted to find out what’s in the side agreements, it should reject the deal for that reason alone.

Categories: Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, IAEA, Ideology, Iran - secret deal, Iran nuke inspections, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Obama, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, P5+1, U.S. Congress, Yukiya Amano
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