U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is praising a nuclear deal reached between Iran and a coalition of six major powers – including the United States – even though the agreement falls far short of conditions imposed on the Arab nation by recent United Nations’ resolutions.
“The purpose of this (deal) is simple: To require Iran to prove the peaceful nature of its nuclear program and ensure that it cannot acquire a nuclear weapon,” Kerry said.
Reached in Geneva, Switzerland the agreement is basically a six-month “pause button” calling for Iran to temporarily suspend most of its nuclear program – although the country is permitted to continue enriching uranium. Not only that, the deal allows Iran to continue construction at its “peaceful” nuclear facilities.
One Washington, D.C. think tank referred to the agreement as “weak” and full of “glaring loopholes.”
“Even if Iran faithfully implements each of its commitments under the interim agreement, it could find itself, in May 2014, a mere month further away than it is now from having weapons-grade uranium—but six months closer to having the rest of a deliverable nuclear weapon,” Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ leaders Mark Dubowitz and Orde Kittre wrote this week.
Dubowitz and Kittre conclude that “the interim agreement fails to bring Iran into compliance with its key international legal obligations as spelled out in United Nations Security Council resolutions.”
In exchange for this weak deal, Iran receives “up to $20 billion” in potential sanctions’ relief.
“Republican” leaders in the U.S. Congress agreed the deal needed work.
“I think you’re going to see on Capitol Hill … a bipartisan effort to try to make sure that this is not the final agreement.” U.S. Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee said, adding the administration of Barack Obama was “big on announcements, very short on substance.”
Actually Obama was ready to sign a much weaker Iranian nuclear deal two weeks ago – but Israel refused to play ball.
In a column published on Al-Jazeera, University of California (Irvine) professor Mark Levine offered a brutal critique of Obama’s Middle Eastern foreign policy.
“President Obama cannot point to a single foreign policy success in the Arab/Muslim world during his tenure in office. He was late and then anaemic – to put it charitably – in his support for the pro-democracy uprisings across the region. He has done nothing to push forward a final settlement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” Levine wrote. “Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt and other major recipients of US aid and support, challenge US policies with impunity. Post-US Iraq is teetering on the brink of large scale violence. Afghanistan is neither stable nor a reliable security partner, and the on-going use of drones by the US has further alienated most of the region, while offering no demonstrable improvement to US security objectives. And Syria has descended into the worst humanitarian disaster of the post-Cold War era.”
Ouch …
Obama defended the deal – and offered up some harsh words for his critics.
“Tough talk and bluster may be the easy thing to do politically, but it is not the right thing for our security,” Obama said.
Personally, we don’t see where the United States (or any other nation in this “major power coalition”) gets off telling Iran what weapons it can or cannot make.
That’s Iran’s business …
As for foreign aid and sanctions (a.k.a. our business), America’s policy should be simple: Free trade with all nations, taxpayer-funded handouts for none.
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Looks like the President promised the Iranians they could keep their program if they liked it.
They get to keep their nukes but we have to beg to keep our insurance plans?
Yep, the President has really been on a roll lately.
“Personally, we don’t see where the United States (or any other nation in this “major power coalition”) gets off telling Iran what weapons it can or cannot make.”
I’m not sure the world community should “allow” other countries to develop nukes. The power of such a weapon is just too great to have a laissez faire attitude towards.
Under Article IV of the Non-Proliferation Treaty Iran is allowed the right to enrichment for peaceful purposes, which they have always claimed is their intent.
Even the vote that supposedly found them guilty of violations of the NPT was marred by the fact 12 of the 35 members of the board abstained, and further especially ironic in that EVERY member of the NPT but Iran and Germany are guilty of violating the NPT specifically in not having “rapidly eliminate all nuclear weapons.”
Of course, the Israeli’s are hypocrites squawking about Iran’s supposedly weaponized nuclear program(that still has not yet been definitively proven, a la shades of Iraq WMD) in that they are NOT MEMBERS OF THE NPT.
So in effect, they are complaining that someone is not meeting standards that they have chosen themselves to not meet.
I think former EAIA head ElBaradei said it best: “[w]e must abandon the unworkable notion that it is morally reprehensible for some countries to pursue weapons of mass destruction, yet morally acceptable for others to rely on them for security – and indeed to continue to refine their capacities and postulate plans for their use.”
The world has somehow moved along even with N.Korea having them, and everyone one else keeping massive stockpiles in spite of the very treaty they’ve signed. (22,000 nuclear warheads. And that total does not include the nuclear arsenals of Israel, Pakistan and India.)
The real issue will be not what Iran will do with nukes, but what the other countries in the region do with Iranian nukes. Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, Lybia, Sudan, Tunisia, Algeria are all Sunni countries. Iran, Iraq, Syria are all Shiite countries. The Sunni/Shiite battle has been raging for some time now and is most clearly evidenced in Iraq and Syria.
Once Iran develops nukes, SA and other Sunni countries will likely develop or attempt to develop nukes of their own. Now, imagine a world where countries that can easily fall suspect to an “Arab Spring” having nukes. Imagine if Lybia or Syria had nukes. Those nukes would absolutely be in the hands of some lunatics bent on the destruction of all non-muslims.
I’m not normally a fan of the U.S. getting involved in other countries’ internal affairs, but a nuclear bomb is just too dangerous to say “c’est la vie.”
Welp, we have crazies in this country chanting “Death to Iran” just like Iran has their crazies chanting the same.
N. Korea is pretty bonified crazy too. (their leadership, that is)
I think you’re missing ElBaradei’s point…you can’t keep the cat in the bag forever, better to just plan for it.
There’s already tons of “lunatics” with nukes…adding a couple more to the heap doesn’t really matter that much IMHO. (Think McCain singing about Bombing Iran and being the only guy in the room really thinking it’s funny while others uncomfortably pretend…that’s a lunatic!)
I think we are causing more harm by stirring the crazy pot over there.
Contrary to popular belief, most of the population even in the “crazy” countries(which really is painting with a broad brush) aren’t looking to blow up the world with themselves for their 72 virgins.
Those are the people we should be appealing to by emulating a peaceful foreign policy, they would be best at trying keep the crazies from scoring nukes.
I have no doubt that most of the people in the Middle East have no desire to blow themselves up. Like I mentioned above, imagine if Syria had nukes instead of chemical weapons. The extremists in Syria would love to get their hands on a nuke and take out a major city in Israel or the U.S. or Lebanon.
The North Korean, Iranian, even Saudi governments have absolutely no interest in setting off nukes. They want to maintain power and control. Blowing up a nuke that results in your entire country’s destruction will not keep you in power. The real danger is the extremists not interested in power or control. Al Qaeda and its ilk are not interested in running a nice country with school buses and water systems. They’re more than happy to blow up themselves and take everyone with them.
The possibility that nukes can fall into a suicide cult’s hands is the real fear. Which, again, is why Iran’s getting nukes isn’t the real concern. It’s how the Sunni nations react to Iran’s nukes and whether they are stable enough to remain in control of those nukes if an Arabian Spring situation happens again.
IRAN’S SUPREME LEADER HOPES NUKE DEAL DISTRACTS ATTENTION FROM OBAMACARE
TEHRAN (The Borowitz Report) — The Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told reporters today his nation agreed to a deal on its nuclear program in the hopes that it would distract attention from the trouble-plagued rollout of Obamacare.
“It’s true, we’ve resisted any deal on nukes for over three decades,” the Ayatollah said. “But when we saw how much trouble Obama was having with his Web site, we realized it would be uncaring of us not to try to help him out.”
The Ayatollah said he was not “overly optimistic” that signing a nuclear treaty with the West would be sufficient to distract attention from the President’s Obamacare woes, but, he added, “You never know. Every little bit helps.”
He said that he and Iran’s leaders will be putting their heads together in the days and weeks ahead to see “if there’s anything else we can do to help Obama out of this health-care mess.”
“One idea we’re tossing around is to get the Iranian people to stop chanting, ‘Death to America,’ the way they have for the past thirty-four years,” he said. “At the very least, maybe dial it back until he gets that Web site straightened out.”
Andy Borowitz.