Fred Fleitz discusses the secret side deals to the Iran agreement on On Point with Tomi Lahren, Center for Security Policy via You Tube, July 28, 2015
Posted tagged ‘Iranian nukes’
Fred Fleitz discusses the secret side deals to the Iran agreement on On Point with Tomi Lahren
July 29, 2015Cartoons of the day
July 29, 2015
John Kerry’s ugly warning to Israel
July 28, 2015John Kerry’s ugly warning to Israel, Paul Mirengoff, July 28, 2015
Issues of blame pale in comparison to issues of security — Israel’s, the wider Middle East’s, and ultimately our own. If Kerry had a strong case that his deal promotes security, he probably wouldn’t be resorting to thinly veiled threats against Israel.
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Secretary of State John Kerry has warned that if Congress rejects the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran, Israel will be blamed. “I fear that what could happen is if Congress were to overturn it, our friends Israel could actually wind up being more isolated and more blamed,” Kerry told the Council of Foreign Relations.
The question is: “more blamed” by whom?
The answer, I think, is “more blamed” by the Obama administration. As Jennifer Rubin says:
Kerry does not “fear” Israel would be blamed; he is threatening to blame Israel if U.S. lawmakers decide that the deal is not in the interests of the United States. Not only is he inciting anti-Israel fervor, but he also is repeating another canard, namely that Israel controls Congress.
In doing all this, the administration echoes ancient tropes against the Jews and not-so-ancient ones against an Israeli government that won’t meekly assent to its death.
Israel will indeed be blamed if Congress rejects the Iran deal. It will be blamed by the usual suspects, among whom the Obama administration features prominently, who blame Israel for a wide range of ills, including the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe and the break down of peace talks between Israel and Palestine.
As Michael Oren says, “the threat of the Secretary of State who, in the past, warned that Israel was in danger of becoming an apartheid state, cannot deter us from fulfilling our national duty to oppose this dangerous deal.” Nor should it deter Israel’s friends in Congress (and elsewhere).
The Obama administration is on its way out. The other “usual suspects” will continue to blame Israel for whatever, but their utterances have never counted for much.
Issues of blame pale in comparison to issues of security — Israel’s, the wider Middle East’s, and ultimately our own. If Kerry had a strong case that his deal promotes security, he probably wouldn’t be resorting to thinly veiled threats against Israel.
Op-Ed: Obama Knows Iran will Use its Nukes on Israel
July 28, 2015Op-Ed: Obama Knows Iran will Use its Nukes on Israel, Israel National News, Mark Langfan, July 28, 2015
(The very notion that Iran wants to send the Jews of Israel to the ovens is ridiculous. Iran just wants to send the ovens to the Jews of Israel. Since they won’t even have to be transported and shoved in, why make a big deal of it? Hmmmm. — DM)
At first, Obama said we couldn’t talk about his Iranian Nuke Deal unless it was finalized. Then, Obama said we couldn’t talk about his Iranian Nuke Deal unless we read it all – and simply didn’t disclose all of his side-deals. Now, he says Mike Huckabee’s comparison of shipping the Jews of Israel to the new ovens of the Iranian Auschwitz-Nuke is “ridiculous.”
Perhaps Obama wants to wait until Iran nukes Israel for it to be politically correct to call Iran’s wiping Israel off the map a “Holocaust.” But, make no mistake, Obama knows full well that Iran intends to wipe Israel off the map with its Obama-blessed Nukes.
Come on, does anyone (except the American left-wing cool-aid drinking Jews) really believe that Iran will abide by their “voluntary” protocols under the Vienna announcement? Of course not! Are Obama or any of the European Unionleaders so rank stupid and naïve that they think Iran won’t build a bomb just like North Korea? Does anyone not know that one of Iran’s first targets will be to annihilate Israel?
Of course Obama knows Iran will seek to annihilate Israel, so that must be what Obama wants.
Obviously, Obama doesn’t care if he enables the murder of another 6 million Jews through a Palestinian State’s chemical Sarin-tipped Katyusha rockets, or an Iranian Nuke. It’s simple: Obama wants Israel and its Jews offed. What is so difficult to understand about that? Every move Obama has made from the very first moment of his presidency has been to irreparably harm Israel and Saudi Arabia, and irrevocably empower Iran. It doesn’t matter what Obama’s specific motivation is. Obama may believe in Farrakhan’s and Rev. Wright’s virulent Chicago anti-Semitism; Obama may be merely steeped in anti-British anti-Colonialism; or both. All that matters is Obama is acting in ways that will allow others to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. If Obama walks like a Jew-hater, arms Iran like a Jew-hater, and creates a PA “West Bank” State like a Jew-hater, he’s a Jew-hater.
But, now here come the American Leftist Jewish “Holocaust” speech-police like Debbie Wasserman-Schulz who say one isn’t allowed to invoke the “Holocaust” or “Auschwitz” into a political debate when it is Iran’s highest leaders who have repeatedly, openly, and notoriously injected into the political debate that they intend to wipe Israel off the map. And, in plain sight, Obama is crowning Iran, the greatest openly Holocaust-threatening, terror-state in the world, the nuclear hegemon-state of the Middle East because Iran is “stable.” I guess Obama forgot he helped quash a popular uprising there as his first foreign policy debacle.
And, let’s also not forget that Iran’s “stability” in Syria has murdered over 250,000 Syrian Sunnis. The Hiroshima “Little Boy” Uranium Gun-type Nuke killed about 150,000 Japanese, and the Nagasaki “Fat Man” Plutonium Implosion Nuke killed about 40,000 Japanese. So, Iran has already killed 2 Hiroshima’s worth of Syrian Sunnis or 6 Nagasaki’s worth of Syrian Sunnis. So, the 150 Billion Dollars Obama is giving Iran is actually a weapon of mass destruction in itself. All of the additional hundreds of thousands of dead Sunnis spilt by Iran’s malign use of the 150 Billion dollars is on the hands of Obama, Susan Rice, John Kerry and Samantha Power.
What Is so loathsome, is that every word, every sentence Obama says is a lie tainted with a patina of truth, Take for example Obama’s statement that Iran had enough enriched Uranium for 10 nukes, but it will be cut down under the supposed deal. When exactly did Iran enrich 10 nukes worth of Uranium? Iran enriched the uranium solely in the last 6 years because the CIA’s published declassified number had virtually zero enriched Uranium when Obama became President. And, Iran’s method to cut down its enrichment is a chemical process that can easily be reversed by a chemical process.
And you have to love Obama’s “If Iran’s ‘stable’ give them nukes” foreign policy. Under Obama’s “Stability” theory, Obama would have also armed Hitler with an arsenal of nukes because Hitler’s Nazi Germany was very stable.
In short, Obama knows full well that Iran is building an Auschwitz-Nuke that it wants to use to annihilate Israel; and, Obama is doing everything he can to ensure that it can do so.
Don’t let Jew-haters like Obama and Wasserman-Schultz turn “Never again,” into “Too Late.
Obama’s Gamble with Iran’s Theocratic Regime
July 28, 2015Obama’s Gamble with Iran’s Theocratic Regime, The Gatestone Institute, Robert D. Onley, July 28, 2015
[T]he gravest consequence of Obama’s Iran deal, and the most damning of its continued defense, is that the world bestowed ideological legitimacy on the Islamic Republic’s radical theocracy, and in so doing has consigned the people of Iran to near permanent rule under the iron fist of Twelver Shi’a Islamism.
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- Obama’s Iran deal is a direct manifestation of the President’s fundamentally misguided worldview, one that wishes away danger and then believes in the wishes.
- Even more concerning is that the Iran deal may directly conflict with U.S. obligations as a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The Iran deal may be unconstitutional, violate international law and feature commitments that President Obama could not otherwise lawfully make. By seeking approval of the deal under the UN Security Council, Obama has bound the U.S. under international law without Senate consent.
- The gravest consequence of Obama’s Iran deal is that the world bestowed ideological legitimacy on the Islamic Republic’s radical theocracy, and in so doing has consigned the people of Iran to near permanent rule under the iron fist of Shi’a Islamism.
- A total reversal of the Iranian regime’s behavior should have been, and still can be, a precondition for the removal of any sanctions related to Iran’s nuclear program. An end to Iran’s financial and material support for terrorist forces such as Hezbollah and Hamas must be demanded, along with the return of the four American hostages Iran is holding.
- There is still time for a better deal that can be had.
As President Obama and Secretary Kerry dominated the airwaves with rounds of media interviews to defend the Iran deal last week, German Vice Chancellor and Economic Minister Sigmar Gabriel flew straight to Tehran for the first of what are certain to be countless meetings by P5+1 leaders to capitalize on new business opportunities in Iran.
In Europe, it seems, there is no debate to be had over the Iran deal; rather, it is a fait accompli.
But in the United States, the domestic debate is heating up, fueled by a Presidential primary campaign and increasingly justified bipartisan anxiety over the bill.
Independent of these political realities, however, the immediacy and tenacity of the White House’s defense of the Iran deal (which now has its own @TheIranDeal Twitter account, no less), betrays an acute unspoken discomfort by many Democrats with the practical flaws and global security dangers that the deal presents.
Obama’s Iran deal is a direct manifestation of the President’s fundamentally misguided worldview, one that wishes away danger and then believes in the wishes.
Haunted by his electorally-motivated premature withdrawal from Iraq in 2011; his refusal in 2013 to confront Syria’s Bashar Assad when he used chemical weapons on his own people; his betrayal by Russia’s Vladimir Putin to whom he had offered a reset button, and his impotence in failing to respond to the aggressive expansionist moves of Russia, ISIS, Iran and China, the President and Democrat Party, in signing the Iran deal, seem to be trying to absolve the United States of its role at the forefront of the global fight against Islamic radicalism and other threats.
Citing the failed EU-led negotiations with Iran in 2005, which resulted in Iran’s massive expansion of centrifuge production, defenders of the deal, such as Fareed Zakaria, have painted a bleak and zero-sum counterfactual argument. It is claimed that the result of Congress’s opposition will be an international community that forges ahead on renewed trade relations with Iran, while leaving the United States outside the prevailing global reconciliation and supposed love-in with the Islamic Republic.
There are several serious problems with this defense, and similarly with the White House’s blitzkrieg public relations campaign to fend off detractors of the Iran deal, with Secretary of State John Kerry commanding the preemptive, and often totally inaccurate, strikes against Congress. In consideration of the colossal failure represented by the North Korea nuclear precedent, let us consider the issues unique to Iran.
Foremost, opponents of the Iran deal are not universally suggesting the Iran deal be killed outright or immediately resort to “war.” This is simply disingenuous. Instead, the opponents’ fundamental premise is that a better deal was left on the table, and thus remains available. The very fact that the Iranian regime was at the negotiating table was indeed a sign of Iran’s weakness; any timelines for the P5+1 to “close” the deal were artificial constraints that surely erased further achievable concessions.
Second, much ink has already been spilled about the technical weaknesses of the Iran deal. Namely: that Iran’s vast nuclear infrastructure remains in place; that the most important restrictions expire in 10 years (a mere blip for humanity); that Iran’s uncivilized domestic and regional behavior was a naughty unmentionable; and finally, that the deal undoubtedly initiated a regional nuclear arms race while supercharging the Iranian regime’s finances.
Third, the gravest consequence of Obama’s Iran deal, and the most damning of its continued defense, is that the world bestowed ideological legitimacy on the Islamic Republic’s radical theocracy, and in so doing has consigned the people of Iran to near permanent rule under the iron fist of Twelver Shi’a Islamism.
This capitulation occurred precisely at a time when the West and the broader Middle East are facing off against the Islamic State — a terrorist force which, when stripped of its social media allure, is ultimately a Sunni-branded spin-off of the extremist Shi’a Islamism that has ruled in Iran since 1979.
The Iranians may be convenient allies as enemies of our enemies today, but not for one second have Iran’s rulers suggested their ultimate intent is anything other than the all too familiar “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” propaganda seen for the past 36 years. In what is objectively and wholly a strange deadly obsession, the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei, has been rousing crowds with calls for the destruction of two nation-states both during and after nuclear negotiations.
In spite of this public malice, defenders of the deal suggest that “the [Obama] administration is making a calculated bet that Iran will be constrained by international pressure.” Why exactly then is Khamenei making clear the opposite?
President Obama’s willingness to concede Iran’s new-found normalized membership in the community of nations on the basis of this nuclear deal is an affront to the liberal, free, democratic principles that have stood against the forces of tyranny throughout American history.
It is also an affront the American political system and to the members of both parties who are now being cornered by the President into supporting, or not supporting, such an intrinsically dangerous and needlessly flawed bargain with an avowed enemy.
Even more concerning is that the Iran deal may directly conflict with U.S. obligations as a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). As a number of critics have pointed out, the Iran deal may be unconstitutional, violate international law and feature commitments that President Obama could not otherwise lawfully make.
By seeking approval of the deal under the UN Security Council, President Obama has bound the United States under international law without Senate consent.
If the United States is to remain the vanguard of human liberty, President Obama must distinguish between the vain pursuit of his legacy, and the civilized world’s deepest need at this consequential hour for the American President to defend comprehensively the fundamental principles that underpin the modern order. Unless his desired legacy is actually to destroy it.
As opponents of the Iran deal have noted, there is still time for a better deal that can be had.
To start, a total reversal of the Iranian regime’s behavior should have been, and still can be, a precondition for the removal of any sanctions related to Iran’s nuclear program. Congress can lobby for this change, and should maintain American sanctions and applicable provisions in the U.S. Treasury Department’s SWIFT terrorist tracking finance program.
Next, while Iran’s regional malignancy may run deep in the regime’s veins (through the many twisted arms of Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps), an end to Iran’s financial and material support for terrorist forces such as Hezbollah and Hamas must be demanded, along with the return of the four American hostages Iran is holding.
Third, those who argue that Iran’s human rights record was not “on the table” in Geneva have needlessly abdicated the West’s moral and intellectual high ground to the forces of barbarism and hate that are now waging war across the region. Respect for international humanitarian norms should never be discarded in such negotiations.
At the end of the day, the deeper questions for Obama and the entire P5+1 are this: By whose standards were negotiations conducted? And whose worldview will rule the 21st century?
In defense of Obama’s approach, the deal’s supporters point out that the Iranians are a “proud, nationalistic people,” which is undoubtedly true, but irrelevant, just as it was for the leadership of Germany’s Third Reich.
The Iranian regime, by virtue of its radical religious nature, weak economy and political experiment with theocracy, should have borne the burden of coming to the negotiating table with the most to lose. Instead, President Obama, on behalf of the free world, is allowing this pariah state to guarantee its place among the nations, lavishly rewarded for having violated the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and in all its about-to-be-well-funded lethality.
Iran: Nuke Deal Permits Cheating on Arms, Missiles
July 27, 2015Iran: Nuke Deal Permits Cheating on Arms, Missiles
Deal puts ‘Zionist regime in irrecoverable danger’
BY: Follow @Kredo0
July 27, 2015 3:16 pm
via Iran: Nuke Deal Permits Cheating on Arms, Missiles | Washington Free Beacon.
Iran’s foreign minister and lead negotiator in nuclear talks said that under the terms of the recently inked accord, the Islamic Republic is permitted to violate current embargoes on the shipment of arms and construction of missiles, according to recent comments made before Iran’s parliament.
Zarif, who spoke to the country’s parliament about the terms of the nuclear deal, also bragged that the finalization of the accord “puts the Zionist Regime in an irrecoverable danger,” according to an independent translation of his Persian language remarks provided to the Washington Free Beacon.
Zarif insisted that “violating the arms and missiles embargo” placed on Iran by the United Nations “does not violate the nuclear agreement.”
U.S. officials and analysts have become increasingly concerned about portions of the deal that will unilaterally lift current restrictions on Iran’s importation and exportation of weapons, as well as its missile construction programs.
While these restrictions still apply, they would be completely lifted in five to eight years under the agreement.
Zarif also took aim at Israel in his remarks, claiming that the deal has isolated Israel as it never has been before.
“Benjamin Netanyahu is ready to kill himself if it helps to stop this nuclear agreement because this agreement puts the Zionist regime in an irrecoverable danger,” Zarif was reported as saying. “The abominable Zionist Regime has never been so isolated among its allies.”
The recent approval of the deal by the United Nations Security Council has solidified Iran’s right to enrich and operate a nuclear program, Zarif went on to say.
“Our biggest accomplishment is that the U.N. Security Council has endorsed our enrichment, this has never happened in the last 70 years,” Zarif said.
“Permit me not to mention the names, but many countries close to the U.S. have agreed to relinquish their enrichment rights, they all envy us today,” he added.
Nuclear Iran: Is the U.S. Really Suicidal?
July 27, 2015Nuclear Iran: Is the U.S. Really Suicidal? The Gatestone Institute, Bassam Tawil, July 27, 2015
- No wonder Iran’s Supreme Leader sent around a tweet of Obama pointing a pistol at his own head. Iran’s forcing itself on the rest of the world is a central part of Khomeini’s Islamic Revolution.
- The Ayatollahs’ wish has long been finally to defeat the divided Arabs, and then to move on to defeat Israel, and then the grandest prize of all — the “Great Satan,” the United States.
- Worse, apparently a “side deal” — classified for the Americans but not for Iran — enables Iran to provide its own soil samples to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to which it has been lying for decades. Even still worse, the parties to the agreement are required to help Iran protect its nuclear facilities should anyone try to attack them or sabotage them — including, presumably, any disenchanted signatories.
- Iran will have been rewarded for having violated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and been given a red carpeted fast track to complete its nuclear bomb.
If Obama and the others who signed the catastrophic nuclear agreement with Iran on the eve of Laylat al-Qadr, the Eve of Destiny, a few days before the end of the Ramadan fast, had studied a little history, they would know that the Battle of Qadisiyyah in 636, in which the Persians suffered a disastrous defeat at the hands of the Arabs, has not yet ended. They would know that Islam had, in fact, been imposed on the Sassanid Empire by force, and that, in protest, the Persians adopted Shi’a Islam, a form of the religion that deviated from and changed the Islam of the Arabs, as a way of rebelling and continuing the fight.
If the West had studied that important event in Islamic history, they would understand they were enabling Iran to achieve a nuclear bomb and accelerate the national religious war between us, the Arabs, and the Shi’ite Iranians. For Iran’s mullahs, the showdown is meant to be apocalyptic.
In that respect, the agreement signed by the American-led powers with Iran’s rulers is a milestone along the path they have been praying for. The Ayatollahs’ wish has long been finally to defeat the divided Arabs, currently at their weakest point since the beginning of the so-called Arab Spring, and then to move on to defeat Israel, and then grandest prize of all: the “Great Satan,” the United States.
The Shi’ite regime of the Ayatollahs in Iran and their proxies are united. And, since the fall of the Shah, they are, sadly, also radical. Between their terrorist wings and influence in the Middle East and abroad, the Ayatollahs are refreshingly open about their determination to defeat the Arabs and achieve religious and national hegemony. Iran’s forcing itself on the rest of the world is a central part of Khomeini’s Islamic Revolution.
U.S. President Barack Obama has harmed us Arabs by abandoning his own red lines — against the emphatic advice of his own military advisors — to accept an agreement that in reality gives the Shi’ites open permission to build nuclear weapons at our expense and, more insanely, to allow Iran intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that could reach America.
Worse, apparently a “side deal” — classified for Americans but not for Iran — allows Iran to provide its own soil samples to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to which it has been lying for decades. In other words, having the cat guard the milk.
Still worse, the parties to the agreement are required to help Iran protect its nuclear facilities should anyone try to attack them or sabotage them — including, presumably, any disenchanted signatories. No wonder Iran’s Supreme Leader sent a tweet of Obama pointing a pistol at his own head.
On July 25, 2015, Iran’s Supreme Leader (right) sent a tweet of Obama pointing a pistol at his own head.
If we try to look at the positive side of the agreement, it is just possible that Obama looked at the Sunni Islamic states, fractured and at each other’s throats, and at the ruthless terrorist groups and all the other battle zones gaining ground, and decided that we were too fractious for the U.S. to protect.
Now, one minute before the Iranians would have collapsed under the weight of the economic sanctions, the U.S. has given them a new lease on life, and, supported by the arrival of billions of dollars, is enabling them to return to their broad international terrorist activities and continue developing their nuclear weapons and the ICBMs on which to mount them.
Not only Iran will profit, but also the Turks, the Chinese and the Russians, who have already jumped at the chance to shore up Iran and themselves, both economically and militarily.
America will be now marginalized, as will its allies. What is in store for America is obvious to anyone listening to the hate speech of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He keeps promising that he will continue fighting against America and Israel, and that Iran will neither stop its nuclear development nor surrender.
Instead of lifting the sanctions, the United States should be increasing them.
When Iran joins the global energy market and strengthens its control of the Gulf maritime route, we, the Arabs, will quickly collapse. The recent visits of the Saudi Arabia foreign minister to American and the American Secretary of Defense to Israel did not help. As the arms embargo and sanctions are lifted, money will begin pouring into Iran. Missiles will be developed that will be capable of reaching first Israel and the Sunni Arab states, then Europe and then the United States. Global terrorism will mushroom. Iran will secretly complete its nuclear project ahead of schedule.
Since the agreement forbids agencies affiliated with America, and now apparently “foreigners,” from visiting Iran’s nuclear installations, the arms industry of Islamic Republic will flourish, and Iran will have been rewarded for having violated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and will be given a red carpeted fast track to build a nuclear bomb.
Satire | Watch out Kim, your nukes are next!
July 27, 2015Watch out Kim, your nukes are next! Dan Miller’s Blog, July 27, 2015
(The views expressed in this article are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)
Having been thoroughly schooled by Iran during the P5+1 nuke negotiations on the necessity for flexibility, the Obama Administration is now even better prepared to take on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Kim learns of U.S. plans
As North Korea and more recently Iran proved, sanctions are feeble devices for getting rogue nations to eliminate their nuclear weapons programs. Possibly effective in bringing such nations to the bargaining table, they tend to collapse as the negotiators come to understand the benefits their nations would realize by their elimination (the sanctions, not necessarily their nations).
According to a July 26th Washington Post article titled U.S. planning to press harder against North Korea on human rights,
After the Obama administration’s groundbreaking nuclear deal with Iran, there have been calls to replicate that pact with North Korea, a rogue state that already has nuclear-weapons capability.
From Washington to Beijing, analysts and policymakers have been talking about the agreement as a possible “blueprint” for negotiations with Pyongyang. [Emphasis added.]
But Kim Jong Un’s regime has made it clear that it expects to be accepted as a nuclear power — saying this month it is “not interested” in an Iran-style deal. The Obama administration is instead focusing on human rights to further isolate North Korea, encouraged by the outbursts this approach has elicited from Kim’s stubbornly recalcitrant regime — apparently because the accusations cast aspersions at the leader and his legitimacy. [Emphasis added.]
“There is a growing assumption that the North Koreans are not going to surrender their nukes,” Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert based in Seoul, said after recent meetings with officials in Washington. Human rights are Washington’s “next political infatuation,” he said.
The linked article also notes,
Pyongyang this month denounced the United States for “escalating” its anti-North Korea campaign after Sung Kim, the U.S. special representative for North Korea policy said at a public forum that “pressure is a very critical part of our approach to dealing with North Korea.”
The North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency reported afterward that pressure “being persistently increased” would simply “harden” North Korea’s “will to take tough counter-action against” the United States.
North Korean representatives have been notably responsive at the United Nations to criticism of the country’s human rights record and of the leadership in particular, staging a number of protests at forums in New York. [Emphasis added.]
North Korea’s increased responsiveness shows that nuke negotiations with it may well be even more successful than were those with Iran, giving Dear Leader Obama an even greater giant leap forward in His pursuit of foreign policy legacies.
Engagement with North Korea is becoming increasingly necessary. It has recently been reported that
the North has recently upgraded a missile platform and may be readying to launch a long-range missile around the time of a national anniversary in October.
In addition, North Korea is building a new high explosives assembly facility at its main Yongbyon nuclear complex. North Korea will probably use such explosives internally only for peaceful purposes, while (although not suggested by the linked article) preparing them for shipment elsewhere. Perhaps they may be sold to Iran and sent via diplomatic pouch to ensure safety.
Iran persuaded Washington, once “infatuated” with the “possible military dimensions” of Iran’s nuclear program, that Iran itself should probe those dimensions, turn the results of its investigations over to the indefatigable UN watchdog (the International Atomic Energy Agency, a.k.a. “IAEA”) and thereby negate all suspicions. Following that precedent, North Korea should itself investigate whether there are bases for allegations of its human rights violations. It should then, in no less timely fashion, turn any relevant information it finds over to the appropriate UN agency — perhaps the Security Council, where all permanent members, including stellar human rights advocates Russia and China, have vetoes.
Despite the brilliance of its handling of the Iranian nuke program — and the equal if not even greater brilliance of the plan to proceed with North Korea — unsubstantiated rumors will be spread by warmongering hawks such as those who continue to challenge Obama’s great victory over Iran. For example, it may be claimed that any DPRK officials who provide evidence of human rights violations will be executed by hungry dogs starved for the purpose.
That is nonsense. Most of the dogs in North Korea are already starving. The over-inflated egos of any DPRK officials that cause them to blather irresponsibly about such things would simply be deflated by defensive antiaircraft weapons such as recently used on Defense Minister Hyon Yong Chol. It’s the humane way to deal with those guilty of “disloyalty and showing disrespect to dictator Kim Jong Un.” It would, in fact, be sufficient evidence of North Korea’s respect for human rights (comparable Iran’s) to terminate any further inquiry immediately.
If, as Obama claims, “99% of world” likes the Iran “deal,” at least 200% will love a deal with North Korea under which it demonstrates its respect for human rights while promising not to use its nukes on any nation unless it wants to because Dear Leader Kim is upset. The trade potentials are equally mind-boggling and the deal will be no less a win-win situation for everyone than the “deal” with Iran!
And we will do the same with North Korea!
Speaking of the Iran deal (7)
July 27, 2015Speaking of the Iran deal (7), Power Line,
Omri Ceren writes to comment on Jay Solomon’s Wall Street Journal article “White House says Iran unlikely to address suspicions of secret weapons program” (accessible here via Google. Omri writes:
The WSJ gained access to some of the documents on the Iran deal that the administration filed with Congress to meet its obligations under the Corker legislation. Two of the documents – both of which are secret and one of which is fully classified (!) – are about the verification process. They reveal that the Obama administration has completely collapsed on the long-standing demand that Iran come clean on the possible military dimensions (PMDs) of its atomic program:
On Iran’s alleged past weapons work, the Obama administration said it concluded: “An Iranian admission of its past nuclear weapons program is unlikely and is not necessary for purposes of verifying commitments going forward…. U.S. confidence on this front is based in large part on what we believe we already know about Iran’s past activities… The United States has shared with the IAEA the relevant information, and crafted specific measures that will enable inspectors to establish confidence that previously reported Iranian [weaponization] activities are not ongoing.”
There’s a history to this collapse. Secretary Kerry made this exact argument to reporters the week before Vienna, but it was a disaster and the State Department immediately retreated: spokesman John Kirby spent the next week telling reporters that they had simply misunderstood Kerry. Ad yet Kerry’s statement is almost word for word what made its way into the documents provided to Congress. Except this time there can’t be a public debate about the stance, because the filing was done in secret and the administration went so far as to classify one of the documents. They’ve made sure that this time there won’t be – there can’t be – any transparency debate over their claims.
Given how the last time went, it’s easy to understand why the administration would want to avoid a robust public discussion over the stance.
On June 11 – a Thursday – the Associated Press revealed that the Obama administration intended to provide Iran with sanctions relief without Tehran resolving the IAEA’s PMD concerns. Instead the Iranians would just have to agree to provide access to inspectors, and the threat of snapback would in theory prevent the them from backsliding [a]. Critics characterized the concession as tantamount to leaving PMD concerns permanentely unresolved, because if current sanctions were inadequate to force Iranian disclosure, how could threatening to restore some of those sanctions later be adequate?
For the next two days – Friday and Monday – the State Department tried arguing that the sequencing would work. They also tried to gaslight reporters by claiming that the administration had always sought access not resolution, leading to exchanges like “our position on this remains the same” vs. “it doesn’t remain the same… you’re lowering the bar even further from address to just agree to give access to” [b].
That wasn’t working so on Tuesday Secretary Kerry teleconferenced into the briefing and introduced a brand new argument: instead of claiming that the Iranians would keep providing PMD-related access after sanctions relief, he declared that the U.S didn’t need to resolve PMDs at all: “We know what they did. We have no doubt. We have absolute knowledge with respect to the certain military activities they were engaged in” [c].
That talking point was even worse. Caving on PMDs guts the verification regime: the IAEA needs to know what the Iranians did and have, so that inspectors can verify they’ve stopped doing those things and given up those assets, and it needs to know how close the Iranians came to a bomb, so that analysts can know how far the Iranians are now [d]. Kerry’s argument – that the West doesn’t need more knowledge because the West already has sufficient knowledge – was indefensible: IAEA chief Amano had said just 3 months before that the agency still lacked adequate insight into Iran’s undeclared activities and former CIA director Michael Hayden published on Wednesday that the same was true of U.S. intelligence community [e][f].
So the rest of the week was retreat. The Obama administration fell back to claiming that reporters had misunderstood Kerry, and that of course the Iranians would still be forced to answer outstanding U.S. and IAEA questions. But since reporters had understood Kerry just fine, the briefings were bloodbaths. On Wednesday seven reporters piled on Kirby, who nonetheless insisted that the plain interpretation of Kerry’s comments was “incorrect” and that “it’s very clear what the expectations are of Iran… we have to resolve our questions about it with specificity. Access is very, very critical” [g]. Ditto for Thursday: “I don’t want to have to rehash this all again today… we were straightforward yesterday about it… nothing has changed about our policy with respect to the possible military dimensions” [h]. Ditto for Friday: “we’ve talked about this before… before there can be a deal, it needs to be determined… that the IAEA will have the access that they need to resolve their concerns” [i].
The converage from Friday to Monday explained why the State Department had retreated. Rep. Devin Nunes, the chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, told Bloomberg View: “My only thought here is that the secretary misspoke or did not understand the question… We clearly don’t have the picture that we need of Iran’s capabilities.” [j]. Veteran diplomat James Jeffrey wrote that “by essentially telling the international community that “the past is past,” Washington and the P5+1 would undercut the arms-control regime that the IAEA is tasked with maintaining globally… there is a term for this that folks all over the region understand, and which Iran greatly values: ‘winning.’ [k]. Politico quoted former IAEA verification chief Olli Heinonen explaining “you need to know how far they got” to calculate breakout [l].
And yet the administration went ahead and put the original Kerry argument, which was crushed when they rolled it out publicly, into the Iran deal.
_________________
[a] http://bigstory.ap.org/article/add1fc3326d74ab08de652e58a5f3060/officials-nuke-deal-wont-answer-iran-weapons-qs-day-1
[b] http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2015/06/243728.htm
[c] http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2015/06/243892.htm
[d] http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304081804579559630836775474
[e] http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/iaea-monitoring-irans-nuclear-program/
[f] http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jun/17/michael-hayden-john-kerrys-unreliable-words-underm/?page=all
[g] http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2015/06/243942.htm
[h] http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2015/06/243983.htm
[i] http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2015/06/244038.htm
[j] http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-06-19/no-u-s-doesn-t-have-absolute-knowledge-on-iran-s-nukes
[k] http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/behind-the-non-flub-on-irans-weaponization-program
[l] http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/iran-nuclear-deal-ayatollah-fatwa-complication-119244.html
Obama slams Huckabee for invoking Holocaust in his criticism of Iran deal
July 27, 2015Obama slams Huckabee for invoking Holocaust in his criticism of Iran deal
US president says such outrageous rhetoric has become commonplace among Republican politicians.
US President Barack Obama on Monday condemned rhetoric about the Iran deal from leading members of the Republican party, including GOP presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee, who has drawn criticism for comparing the accord to the Holocaust.
Huckabee called Barack Obama “feckless” and “naive” in an interview with Breitbart News on Saturday, adding that by signing the deal the President “will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven.”
Speaking at a press conference in Ethiopia on Monday, Obama said that such “outrageous attacks” have become “all too commonplace” among Republican politicians.
The US president described Huckabee’s comments as “part of just a general pattern we have seen that would be considered ridiculous if it weren’t so sad.”
Huckabee has come under fire from both Jewish groups and the Democratic party after making the comparison between the Holocaust and the Iran deal.
However the Republican presidential candidate refused to back down, continuing to make his case against the Iran deal on Twitter.
Tell Congress to do their constitutional duty & reject the Obama-Kerry #IranDeal –> http://t.co/SaIyuq4w01 pic.twitter.com/2rFJgdDHhV
— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) July 26, 2015
He tweeted a series of messages Sunday with quotes from Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in which they threaten Israel with a holocaust.
Ayatollah Khamenei’s Iranian Martyr Foundation rep: “We have manufactured missiles that allow us…to replace Israel…with a big holocaust”
— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) July 27, 2015
“It is the mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to erase Israel from the map of the region.” – Ayatollah Khamenei http://t.co/tMBfHPHZk2
— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) July 27, 2015
“If they [Jews] all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.” – Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah leader
— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) July 27, 2015
Obama, speaking in Ethiopia during a tour of African nations, said the majority of the world’s nuclear scientists and non-proliferation experts backed the July 14 accord, indicating it was the best way to stop Iran acquiring nuclear weapons.
“There is a reason why 99 percent of the world thinks it’s a good deal — it’s because it’s a good deal,” Obama said during a joint press conference with Ethiopian prime minister Hailemariam Desalegn in the capital Addis Ababa.
“The good news is that I’ve not yet heard a factual argument on other side that holds up to scrutiny,” he added.
Sam Sokol contributed to this report.
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