According to Israel National News (Arutz Sheva) these are the key provisions of The Deal:
Iran will reduce its uranium enrichment capacity by two-thirds. This will involve stopping the use of its underground facility at Fordow for enriching uranium.Israelis, and most particularly the Netanyahu government, do not seem happy with the deal.
Iran’s stockpile of low enriched uranium will be reduced by 95%, to 300 kg. This will be done either by diluting the enriched uranium or shipping it out of the country.
The core of the heavy water reactor in Arak will be removed, and it will be redesigned so that it will not produce significant amounts of plutonium.
Iran will allow UN inspectors to enter sites, including military sites, when the inspectors have grounds to believe undeclared nuclear activity is being carried out there. It can object but a multinational commission can override any objections by majority vote. After that, Iran will have three days to comply. Inspectors will only come from countries with diplomatic relations with Iran – therefore, they will not include Americans.
Once the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has verified that Iran has taken steps to scale back its program, UN, US and EU sanctions on Iran will be lifted.
Restrictions on trade in conventional weapons will last another five years.
Restrictions on trade in ballistic missile technology will last another eight years.
If there are allegations that Iran has not met its obligations, a joint commission will seek to resolve the dispute. If that effort is not successful within 30 days, the matter would be referred to the UN Security Council, which would vote on continuing sanctions relief. A veto by a permanent member would mean that sanctions are reimposed. The whole process would take 65 days.
Marissa Newsman, writing in the Times of Israel, tell us:
“The prime minister emphasized that the deal raises two main dangers: It will allow Iran to arm itself with nuclear weapons — if it keeps to the deal, at the end of the 10-15 years, if it breaks it, before then,” a statement from Netanyahu’s office said.What we are looking at here, in my humble opinion, is a roll of the dice. In the mean time Iran will reap considerable financial benefits which, as Netanyahu reminded Barack Obama, will be used for the noble purpose of committing violence against the Jewish minority in the Middle East.
“It addition, it will pump hundreds of billions of dollars into the Iranian terror and war machine which threatens Israel and the entire world,” the statement quoted Netanyahu as telling Obama.
The US administration seems rather smug about finally getting the deal and Iran is enjoying rubbing it in Israel's face, however it is not as if the Sunni Arab states are happy with this, either. What we will now see in the Middle East, due to Barack Obama's apparent need to partner with Islamist forces such as Iran - not to mention the Muslim Brotherhood - is a nuclear arms race with Saudi Arabia and Egypt taking the lead in order to counter Obama's Iranian nuclear weapons.
What we will also see is the ongoing deterioration of American influence throughout the region because no one, aside from the Iranians, now see the United States as a trustworthy tactical partner.
Earlier, Netanyahu slammed the world powers’ nuclear deal with Iran as a “stunning historic mistake,” while maintaining that Israel was under no obligation to adhere to it.I do not see how any Israeli government has any choice but to oppose this deal because it means that Iran is going, in relatively short order, to gain nuclear weapons.
“Israel is not bound by this deal with Iran because Iran continues to seek our destruction. We will always defend ourselves,” Netanyahu told foreign media reporters in Jerusalem.
The real question, to my mind, is what, if anything, Israel intends to do about it? Israel took out the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981, but this is not 1981 and Iran is not Iraq. I doubt if Israel, by itself, has the capacity to take out Iranian nuclear facilities. US military "bunker busters" may be necessary, but there is no way that the hostile president of the United States is going to provide Israel with the means to do the job.
The Obama administration will yammer to Americans and to the international community that this is a great day for the world and a great day for the United States.
Critics of the administration will claim that it is highly naive and, thereby, a danger to people throughout the world.
Richard Nephew, a former top sanctions advisor in the negotiations, said:
“This was the first time that a country that was breaking all the rules was made to change."And:
“It will show you can bring a country in from the cold.”Barack Obama must be the most blasé American president that I have ever seen.
His primary legacy will be an Islamist bomb and the destruction of the Oslo "peace process."
{Perhaps we can be thankful for the latter.}
Essentially the Obama administration is gambling on the good-will of the Ayatollahs, the very people that continually screech for "Death to America!"
Perhaps Obama's roll of the dice will get lucky, but I would not bet on that, either.
Iran announced they increased their defense budget 36%. There are no proscriptions on any and all ICBM technology. No proscriptions on conventional weapons. No regulatory regime over the Straits of Hormuz. The nuclear inspections regime, even the fake one they committed to, can't and won't be enforced. There are no proscriptions on buying or developing any nuclear technology from anyone else. No rules about whether they can sell or give nuclear technology to anyone else. There is no way to verify if even what they say today is remotely accurate or truthful.
ReplyDeleteMoreover if history is any guide, in a day or two the Supreme Leader will announce there is no deal and Obama lied or mistranslated something and that Iran is of course free to do what it likes. Then they will announce that because our side of the table has to meet with vague Congressional approval that there isn't any deal for them to concern themselves with. Then Obama will announce a new round of talks but all of the other non-Iranian partners will refuse to participate because they already abandoned all sanctions. In a year India will be the only declared nuclear nation NOT doing a brisk business with Iran to help them develop atomic weapons.
BTW CNN 'lost' the feed of Netanyahu's reaction to the treaty mid sentence. Where's my fainting couch?
ReplyDeleteObama is signing this agreement with a state that we have no diplomatic relations with, and that is calling for the annihilation of a UN member state and whose leaders also lead chants of "death to America." The Islamic Republic of Iran, (let's use its actual name, Obama presumably honors their bonafides as being the real thing, Islamic) has zero respect for international laws, as it showed when it invaded US territory, i.e., the Embassy of the United States of America in Tehran, and held its personnel hostage for 444 days. The lifting of sanctions will be a boon to its regional ambitions. For crying out loud, it's a proselytizing radical theocracy that is militarily weak, and Obama has helped set it on a path of dominance. What the psychological factors are that made Obama obsessed with that country, I can only guess, but when it had its own uprising in 2009 (a "Persian Spring") he seemed not to care for that idea at all. What is it with this guy?
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, Oren nailed it.
DeleteAs a creature of Rashid Khalidi and Edward Said, Obama believes that Western imperialism has hobbled the development of the Muslim world.
Thus only "authentic" Muslim powers like the Islamic Republic of Iran or the Muslim Brotherhood represent actual Muslim aspirations and, therefore, must be respected.
The fact that Islamism opposes the rights of women, hangs Gay people from cranes, and yearns for the annihilation of the Jews is entirely irrelevant to Barack Obama and his supporters.
What matters is overcoming centuries of white, western aggression upon people "of color."
It is a dream from his father.
It's infantile.
DeleteI would say the body of evidence agrees with your conclusions Mike
Delete
DeleteThis is Oren's general theme and, I have to say, I am gratified that he agrees with me.
I have been making the exact same argument for years, so when someone like Oren comes in and confirms Obama's ideological orientation, as derived from people like Said and Khalidi, it gives me a little breathing room.
I apologize to you guys, because I have no doubt but that I am going to beat this to death.
But Oren writes:
"Most challenging to explain to Israelis was Obama's support for Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood. Contrary to the assurances I had received that the administration would not engage the Isamist movement, the State Department formally initiated ties with Brotherhood leaders in January 2012. Six months later, after the election of the movement's leaders, Mohammed Morsi, to the presidency - by just over 51 percent of the vote - those contracts became an embrace."
His support for the Muslim Brotherhood.
I took an awful lot of crap for saying precisely what Oren has just acknowledged in "Ally."
But now it has been confirmed on the highest level.
Yet I am still not sure that people get what that signifies.
Obama supported the Brotherhood and American Democrats shrug their shoulders as if they do not get what that means.
"I am going to beat this to death."
DeleteBe my guest.
You are talking about the kapos like DHG spewing shit like this
ReplyDeleteMore CRAP from DSKF (Daily Storm Kos Front)
What I love about Trudy is that she makes anything that I say sound unquestionably reasonable.
ReplyDelete:O)
This is a very interesting moment.
ReplyDeleteBarack Obama is, in fact, shooting craps with the lives of your children and grandchildren.
In the most basic terms possible, there were two choices.
1) Prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon controlled by Islamists.
2) Allow an Iranian nuclear weapon controlled by Islamists.
Obama chose option number two.
I wonder what JFK would have thought of such a decision?
See?
ReplyDeleteThere has never been any nation that has developed nuclear weapons non surreptitiously. Every single one developed them in secret and kept that secret as long as they could. To assume any level of transparency is, well, it's retarded.
ReplyDeleteRussia stole some intel from the US and accelerated both their fission and fusion programs about 18 months each as a result. Up until 1949 the CIA assumed the Soviets would not have the bomb until 1951-2. They made this statement weeks before the first Soviet test. The CIA further guessed that the Soviets would not have the H-Bomb before 1956. They were off by 4 years.
The British were kicked out of the Manhattan project almost on the day WW2 ended. They went off and started more or less from scratch and threw together a successful program by 1952. But by 1962 were planning on debuilding their own program and buying bombs from the Americans. Which they did and have since.
The French worked for years in secret and only ran a successful test in 1960 because De Gaulle was afraid of a possible military overthrow of the government and wanted to get their one working device off the plate in case there was a coup.
India worked in secret for nearly 24 years to get a successful nuclear test in 1974. This was 100% unexpected by every western intelligence service. And then India stopped and didn't test again for another 24 years.
Pakistan's history is well known by now - stealing and bartering anything they could get to develop nukes in secret and sell the technology to North Korea and every Arab tyrant out there.
South Africa successfully built 6 atomic bombs with 2 more in the pipeline and the only way they were discovered at all was when satellites detected the construction of an underground test hole that was never used.
Other countries that have started nuclear weapons programs and then abandoned them early include Brazil, Argentina, Romania, Switzerland, Sweden, Egypt, Libya, Iraq, Algeria. None of these countries got very far but neither were they detected either.
Countries which probably have the technology and the politics to embark on atomic weapons development include; Nigeria, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines.
Countries which could build nuclear weapons but in all likelihood never will, include; Canada, Germany, Mexico, Turkey, Ukraine, Australia.
So the wherewithal to build them is out there. It's littering the world. The only obstacles are political will and time-money. And we just gave Iran the money and the will to do just that.
Yes.
DeleteAgreed.
DeleteTerrific comment.
I think we've agreed that this outreach wasn't primarily about the bomb in the first place, and that Obama, the president with the funny name, wants to boost the mullahs as regional actors.
ReplyDelete“It will show you can bring a country in from the cold.”
The punditocracy keeps discussing this as if the main objective was to stop the bomb.
I heard Chris Matthews last night with the "it's either a deal, (meaning this deal), or war."
But war, is something there will be plenty of, and Iran will be fomenting it. The whole idea that somehow this "warming" of relations is going to change The Islamic Republic of Iran into some moderate pussycat is farcical. They are building a bomb and they want to extend the sphere of their Islamist revolution. It's about projecting power.
But most media want to narrow the scope of the discussion so Barry can be seen as a success.
The only people who suggest Obama or War are the people who 100% support Obama. No one who's actually thoughtfully opposed to this deal has suggested that the only other option is war. Chris Baloonhead Matthews is pulling the same stunt that LBJ did in 1964 with the anti Goldwater TV ad where the little girl is blowing flowers and the count down to nuclear annihilation goes off. It's a fear tactic. Their excuse is that 'Sanctions don't work" which is odd because a) that's a lie and b) their own demi god president invoked them, can He Who Is The One be wrong?
DeleteHe was against sanctions before he was for them before he wanted to remove them.
DeleteThe LBJ ad aired once and was deemed too controversial.
Obama's deal with Iran not primarily about nuclear weapons.
ReplyDeleteLee Smith:
http://m.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-strikes-deal-qassem-suleimani_990919.html
The Iranians in no way see Obama as an ally. They see him as a patsy. Iran understands that Obama's general approach to all opposition on the foreign stage is to cave and abandon one's former allies. Iran doesn't want or need Obama as an ally because that puts them in the uncomfortable spot of being the next ones thrown under the bus when someone prettier comes along to shmooze him. They recognize that Obama stands for nothing and has no firmly anchored principles regarding thing one. He stands for Obama and only Obama. If you could sum up the entire Obama history in one word it's 'legacy' - how he feels history will view him. That's literally all there is.
DeleteTrudy,
Deleteagreed.
Obama sees them as an ally, they do not see him ( America) as one.
His naiveté is extraordinary.
They probably see Obama as the biggest walkover of all time.