Posted tagged ‘Iranian missiles’

« WarSclerotic home page
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

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
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 1 Comment

“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.

**********************

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
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 1 Comment

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
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 4 Comments

Newly-Declassified U.S. Government Documents: The West Supported the Creation of ISIS Washington’s Blog

August 8, 2015

Newly-Declassified U.S. Government Documents: The West Supported the Creation of ISIS

Posted on May 24, 2015 by WashingtonsBlog

via Newly-Declassified U.S. Government Documents: The West Supported the Creation of ISIS Washington’s Blog.

Judicial Watch has – for many years – obtained sensitive U.S. government documents through freedom of information requests and lawsuits.

The government just produced documents to Judicial Watch in response to a freedom of information suit which show that the West has long supported ISIS.   The documents were written by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency on August 12, 2012 … years before ISIS burst onto the world stage.

Here are screenshots from the documents. We have highlighted the relevant parts in yellow:

ISIS1Why is this important? It shows that extreme Muslim terrorists – salafists, Muslims Brotherhood, and AQI (i.e. Al Qaeda in Iraq) – have always been the “major forces driving the insurgency in Syria.”

This verifies what the alternative media has been saying for years: there aren’t any moderate rebels in Syria (and see this, this and this).

The newly-declassified document continues:

ISIS 2Yes, you read that correctly:

… there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist Principality in eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime ….

In other words, the powers supporting the Syrian opposition – the West, our Gulf allies, and Turkey wanted an Islamic caliphate in order to challenge Syrian president Assad.

Sure, top U.S. generals – and vice president Vice President Joe Biden – have said that America’s closest allies support ISIS.  And mainstream American media have called for direct support of ISIS.

But the declassified DIA documents show that the U.S. and the West supported ISIS at its inception … as a way to isolate the Syrian government.  And see this.

This is a big deal.  A former British Army and Metropolitan Police counter-terrorism intelligence officer and a former MI5 officer confirm that the newly-released documents are a smoking gun.

This is a train wreck long in the making.

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 1 Comment

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
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 1 Comment

Obama Puts Fear Before Facts on Iran

August 6, 2015

Obama Puts Fear Before Facts on Iran, Bloomberg View, The Editors, August 5, 2015

(Please see also, Iran Already Sanitizing Nuclear Site, Intel Warns. — DM)

The pact is not a treaty: A future president and Congress might overturn it, arguing that it was sealed without proper consideration. And history often looks with disgust at causes built on fear, especially if they go awry. Obama wouldn’t want to face the kind of scorn he heaped on George W. Bush today.

***********************

President Barack Obama took to the airwaves today, aiming to sell Congress and the American people on the wisdom of his nuclear deal with Iran. He had a case to make but chose not to make it. He decided instead to cast legitimate criticism of his pact as ignorant warmongering. 

A few examples:

“We have achieved a detailed arrangement that permanently prohibits Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.” Actually, the deal’s restrictions end abruptly after 15 years, with some of the constraints on uranium enrichment fading away after just 10. Late in the speech, Obama made the case that much can change in a decade and that the West could be in a stronger position then to continue to block Iran’s nuclear desires. But the temporary nature of the deal remained disguised.

“Many of the same people who argued for the war in Iraq are now making the case against the Iran nuclear deal.” Certainly the Iraq war was sold on spurious grounds and had tragic results. Certainly Republicans and Democrats alike were far too credulous in accepting the Bush administration’s rationale. But these facts have absolutely nothing to do with this agreement.

“Before the ink was even dry on this deal, before Congress even read it, a majority of Republicans declared their virulent opposition.” That’s true, but ignores that opponents had plenty of time to study the draft agreement reached last spring. The real problem is that Congress still hasn’t read the entire accord, its side agreements and the inspections plan negotiated by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Even Secretary of State John Kerry says there are aspects of the deal he has never seen.

“If there is a reason for inspecting a suspicious undeclared site anywhere in Iran, inspectors will get that access even if Iran objects. This access can be with as little as 24 hours’ notice.” The key words here are “as little as.” Iran can draw that process out for as long as 24 days if it so chooses. Foreign Minister Javad Zarif says some military sites will remain off-limits to IAEA personnel.

“If, as has also been suggested, we tried to maintain unilateral sanctions, beefen them up … we’d have to cut off countries like China from the American financial system. And since they happen to be major purchasers of our debt, such actions could trigger severe disruptions in our own economy, and, by way, raise questions internationally about the dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency.” Rejection by Congress could cause the sanctions regime to fray. Lawmakers should weigh this. The idea that it might cripple the U.S. economy is absurd.

“I’ve had to make a lot of tough calls as president, but whether or not this deal is good for American security is not one of those calls, it’s not even close.” Maybe this deal is the best chance to delay the mullahs’ race to the bomb and keep the Middle East out of a nuclear arms race. But the case is anything but open-and-shut. It’s hard to see what the president gains from denying this.

Well, perhaps one thing: Obama may hope that denigrating those who disagree with him will rally Democrats in Congress to support a veto of any measure of disapproval. Tactics aside, it would be far better to win this fight fairly. The pact is not a treaty: A future president and Congress might overturn it, arguing that it was sealed without proper consideration. And history often looks with disgust at causes built on fear, especially if they go awry. Obama wouldn’t want to face the kind of scorn he heaped on George W. Bush today.

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

Comments: 1 Comment

Cartoons of the day

August 6, 2015

H/t Freedom is just another word

 

wanted

deal

Categories: Foreign policy, Humor, IAEA, Iran scam, Iranian military sites, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Obama, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, P5+1
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 1 Comment

U.S. Has Photographic Proof Iran Is Trying to Cheat on the Nuclear Deal

August 6, 2015

U.S. Has Photographic Proof Iran Is Trying to Cheat on the Nuclear Deal

by John Sexton5 Aug 2015

via U.S. Has Photographic Proof Iran Is Trying to Cheat on the Nuclear Deal – Breitbart.

John Kerry, Mohammad Javad Zarif

The Associated Press

Iran is sanitizing a military site believed to have been used for nuclear weapons research in the past. Testing of the site by the IAEA is one of the final hurdles Iran has to clear to gain sanction relief, and the U.S. intelligence community has evidence Iran is trying to cheat on those tests.

A blockbuster report by Josh Rogin and Eli Lake reveals the U.S. intelligence community has shared satellite imagery with top lawmakers which shows Iran doing heavy construction at Parchin, a military site where the IAEA has reason to believe Iran conducted nuclear weapons testing in the past.

Intelligence officials and lawmakers who have seen the new evidence, which is still classified, told us that satellite imagery picked up by U.S. government assets in mid- and late July showed that Iran had moved bulldozers and other heavy machinery to the Parchin site and that the U.S. intelligence community concluded with high confidence that the Iranian government was working to clean up the site ahead of planned inspections by the IAEA.

Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC)

49%

told the Bloomberg reporters the Iranian efforts to sanitize Parchin was “a huge concern.”

Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN)

51%

said he was disturbed by the “blatant way” in which Iran was apparently seeking to prepare the site to fool the IAEA inspectors. “Iran is going to know that we know,” he told Bloomberg.

The IAEA signed a side deal with Iran designed to resolve questions about the past military dimensions (PMD) of its nuclear program. That deal requires Iran to allow the IAEA to access the Parchin military site for testing no later than mid-October. However, some senators have suggested that, under the agreement, Iran may be allowed to collect and provide their own samples to the IAEA for testing, making it more likely they could try to cheat.

Resolving PMD issues has been one of the headline issues in the nuclear agreement for months. Officially, President Obama has insisted Iran will have to resolve all outstanding questions before any sanctions relief takes place. However, Secretary Kerry signaled in June that the administration was not concerned about resolving past nuclear research because, he claimed, “we know what they did.” Democratic Sen. Chris Coons echoed Kerry, telling Bloomberg, “We know what the Iranians did at Parchin.” And because we know, Coons says he is not too concerned about these past issues.

Meanwhile, Iran has maintained for years, including throughout the negotiation of the current deal, that any evidence suggesting it had researched nuclear weapons in the past was fabricated by foreign intelligence agencies. The intense political pressure for the deal to go forward has led some outside experts to suggest the IAEA will issue a hand-waving report which doesn’t really resolve questions about Iran’s past nuclear research.

Tariq Rauf, a former IAEA official, told the Guardian last month, “[IAEA Director] Amano has said he will give an assessment report, not a conclusion, which is not what the IAEA normally does. His likely assessment by December is that there are unanswered questions, but the agency has what it needs, and it will be rubber-stamped by the board.”

Failure to pin Iran down on this will allow them to continue the fiction that they had never sought nuclear weapons in the past, meaning they could emerge with a clean slate on this issue despite the fact that our government says they are lying. Iran’s attempt to sanitize the site with the whole world watching suggests they are very confident indeed that nothing, not even blatant attempts to sanitize evidence, will be allowed to stop this deal from proceeding.

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 1 Comment

Iran Already Sanitizing Nuclear Site, Intel Warns

August 5, 2015

Iran Already Sanitizing Nuclear Site, Intel Warns, Bloomberg View, &  August 5, 2015

The U.S. intelligence community has informed Congress of evidence that Iran was sanitizing its suspected nuclear military site at Parchin, in broad daylight, days after agreeing to a nuclear deal with world powers.

For senior lawmakers in both parties, the evidence calls into question Iran’s intention to fully account for the possible military dimensions of its current and past nuclear development. The International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran have a side agreement meant to resolve past suspicions about the Parchin site, and lawmakers’ concerns about it has already become a flashpoint because they do not have access to its text.

Intelligence officials and lawmakers who have seen the new evidence, which is still classified, told us that satellite imagery picked up by U.S. government assets in mid- and late July showed that Iran had moved bulldozers and other heavy machinery to the Parchin site and that the U.S. intelligence community concluded with high confidence that the Iranian government was working to clean up the site ahead of planned inspections by the IAEA.

The intelligence community shared its findings with lawmakers and some Congressional staff late last week, four people who have seen the evidence told us. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence briefed lawmakers about the evidence Monday, three U.S. senators said.

“I am familiar with it,” Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr told us Tuesday. “I think it’s up to the administration to draw their conclusions. Hopefully this is something they will speak on, since it is in many ways verified by commercial imagery. And their actions seem to be against the grain of the agreement.”

Burr said Iran’s activities at Parchin complicate the work of the IAEA inspectors who are set to examine the site in the coming months. IAEA’s director general, Yukiya Amano, was in Washington on Wednesday to brief lawmakers behind closed doors about the side agreements.

“They are certainly not going to see the site that existed. Whether that’s a site that can be determined what it did, only the technical experts can do that,” Burr said. “I think it’s a huge concern.”

A senior intelligence official, when asked about the satellite imagery, told us the IAEA was also familiar with what he called “sanitization efforts” since the deal was reached in Vienna, but that the U.S. government and its allies had confidence that the IAEA had the technical means to detect past nuclear work anyway.

Another administration official explained that this was in part because any trace amounts of enriched uranium could not be fully removed between now and Oct. 15, the deadline for Iran to grant access and answer remaining questions from the IAEA about Parchin.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker told us Tuesday that while Iran’s activity at Parchin last month isn’t technically a violation of the agreement it signed with the U.S. and other powers, it does call into question Iran’s intention to be forthright about the possible military dimensions of its nuclear program.

“The intel briefing was troubling to me … some of the things that are happening, especially happening in such a blatant way,” he said. “Iran is going to know that we know.” He added the new information gave him “a lot of concerns” about Iran coming clean on military dimensions of its nuclear work.

According to the overall nuclear agreement, sanctions relief for Iran can come only after the IAEA and Iran resolve their outstanding concerns about possible military dimensions of past and current work. But the agreement does not specify how the issue must be resolved, only that it be resolved to the IAEA’s satisfaction.

Several senior lawmakers, including Democrats, are concerned that Iran will be able to collect its own soil samples at Parchin with only limited supervision, a practice several lawmakers have compared to giving suspected drug users the benefit of the doubt to submit specimens unsupervised. Iran’s sanitization of the site further complicates that verification.

Democratic Senator Chris Coons, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, told us Tuesday that this area is part of why he is undecided on supporting the Iran deal.

“I have concerns about the vigorous efforts by Iran to sanitize Parchin,” he said. “I’ve gotten some reassurance about how difficult it is for them to effectively conceal what we know to have been their illicit nuclear weapons developments there.”

Coons said he was most concerned about the integrity of the IAEA inspection process going forward and not as concerned about figuring out what happened in the site in the past: “We know what the Iranians did at Parchin.”

David Albright, the president of the Institute for Science and International Security, obtained a commercially available image of the Parchin site taken by satellites on July 26 that shows renewed activity at the Parchin site. He told us there are two new large vehicles, alterations ongoing to roofs of two of the buildings and new structures near two of the buildings.

“You have to worry that this could be an attempt by Iran to defeat the sampling, that it’s Iran’s last-ditch effort to eradicate evidence there,” he said. “The day is coming when they are going to have to let the IAEA into Parchin, so they may be desperate to finish sanitizing the site.”

The facility, outside of Tehran, first came to the attention of the international community in 2004 when news reports surfaced that it was being used to test explosives for a nuclear warhead.

A 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Assessment concluded that Iran halted this kind of work in 2003. Between 2005 and today, Iran has allowed IAEA inspectors access to Parchin — a vast complex with dozens of buildings — on only five occasions. In 2012, Abright’s group reported on satellite imagery that it said showed efforts to clean up evidence of an explosives testing chamber there.

Representative Ed Royce, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said that Amano had told him in recent conversations that the IAEA had “thousands of pages of documentations on tests to weaponize a nuclear device.” Royce added, “For a long time, they have been altering sites.”

The IAEA has documented this as well. The agency’s report from May 29 this year said there was  satellite imagery of vehicles, equipment and “probable construction materials” at Parchin. The report said, “The activities that have taken place at this location since February 2012 are likely to have undermined the Agency’s ability to conduct effective verification.”

Secretary of State John Kerry has said that the U.S. government has “absolute knowledge” about what Iran has done in the past. Ahead of the vote on the agreement next month, many lawmakers don’t share Kerry’s confidence. Iran would seem to have its doubts as well, since it’s still trying to cover its tracks.

Categories: Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, IAEA, Intelligence community, Iran nuke inspections, Iran scam, Iranian military sites, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Obama, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, P5+1, Parchin, U.S. Congress
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 1 Comment

Obama negotiator says she didn’t see final Iran ‘side deals’

August 5, 2015

Obama negotiator says she didn’t see final Iran ‘side deals,’ The Hill, Kristina Wong, August 5, 2015

(Were the secret agreements on which Kerry, et al, were “fully briefed” and hence know “exactly” what they say also “rough drafts?” Unlike Ms. Sherman, Kerry testified that he had not seen the secret agreement(s).– DM)

shermanwendy_052715gettyGetty Images

[L]ater in the hearing, she walked back her comments about not seeing the final arrangements. 

“I was shown documents that I believed to be the final documents, but whether there were any further discussions…” she added before being cut off by another question by Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.). Later, she said responded, “I have” when asked whether she saw the final versions of the deals.

****************

The only Obama administration official to view confidential “side deals” between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) admitted Wednesday she and her team have only seen rough drafts.

“I didn’t see the final documents. I saw the provisional documents, as did my experts,” said Wendy Sherman, a lead U.S. negotiator for the deal, at a Senate Banking Committee hearing.  

Sherman, undersecretary of State for political affairs, said she was only allowed to see the confidential deals “in the middle of the negotiation” when the IAEA “wanted to go over with some of our experts the technical details.” 

She maintained the deals — which focus on with Iran’s prior work on a bomb and access to Iran’s Parchin military site — are still confidential and can’t be submitted to Congress.

Sherman said the U.S. did not protest to the confidentiality of the agreements, despite the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act demanding all related agreements, because the administration wanted the IAEA to respect the confidentiality of their agreements with the U.S.

“We want to protect U.S. confidentiality … this is a safeguards protocol. The IAEA protects our confidential understandings … between the United States and the IAEA,” she said.

However, later in the hearing, she walked back her comments about not seeing the final arrangements.

“I was shown documents that I believed to be the final documents, but whether there were any further discussions…” she added before being cut off by another question by Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.). Later, she said responded, “I have” when asked whether she saw the final versions of the deals.

She also argued they could not be submitted to Congress because the administration does not have the deals, and that the Senate had “every single document” the administration has.

Sherman emphasized she would brief Senators later Wednesday afternoon in a classified session on everything she knows about the deal.

A similar briefing for House lawmakers last week did not assuage concerns for Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday calling on the administration to submit the deals.

She also noted that IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano was meeting with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee later in the afternoon.

Although she said the U.S. did not ask or pressure Amano to conduct the briefing, she suggested it was a gesture beyond what the IAEA is obligated to do.

Categories: Diplomacy, Dishonor, Dog and Pony Show, Foreign policy, IAEA, Iran - secret deal, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Obama, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, P5+1, Parchin, U.S. Congress, Wendy Sherman
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 1 Comment

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »