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America Reaches Deal with Iran


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but...but...but....the world is safer now.

I hope and want to believe so -- again even if it appears to be a bit muddy - maybe it will spur more talking and making it more concise and clear. Again movement in the right direction vs war.

 

I want to believe so too. I just don't trust too many people who are involved to get all warm and fuzzy at this point.

 

Talking is a good thing. Actions mean much more though.

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but...but...but....the world is safer now.

I hope and want to believe so -- again even if it appears to be a bit muddy - maybe it will spur more talking and making it more concise and clear. Again movement in the right direction vs war.

 

I want to believe so too. I just don't trust too many people who are involved to get all warm and fuzzy at this point.

 

Talking is a good thing. Actions mean much more though.

 

Amen on the action part

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It's a long way until June 30th when pens are finally put to paper. Assuming you know anything about politics––anything at all about the game of it––then you already know the next couple months are going to be filled with bloated rhetoric, threats, insinuations, and BS. Probably none of it will matter and the deal will be signed regardless of what anyone says to appeal to the right wingers in their respective countries. At this point it's all for show. Where are the major newspapers (which the conservative Fox News spinoff Weekly Standard isn't) furiously covering a major initiative that just fell in the toilet? Where is the flock of reporters surrounding the White House to catch every minute of the humiliation? What's that? The sound of silence? I wonder why that is . . .

 

 

The Weekly Standard calls itself "A Weekly Conservative Magazine" right on the Google link. Wikipedia labels it a "neoconservative opinion magazine." Today one of the top stories on the front page is titled "Unravel the Deal," written by Bill Kristol (who is the editor and a regular guest on Fox News). Here is a snippet from this thoughtful piece of foreign policy analysis:

 

What is to be done about Obama's Iran "deal"? We could, fatalistically, lament the collapse of American foreign policy. We could, indignantly, gnash our teeth in frustration at the current administration. We could, constructively, work to secure congressional review of the deal and urge presidential candidates to commit to altering or abrogating it.

 

Or we can stop it now.

 

How? the best chance is to prevent a final deal from being signed on June 30. And the best way to do that is to spend the next 80 days pulling on the loose threads and poking at the fraying parts of the framework announced last week in Lausanne.

 

If the deal falls apart, it falls apart. It wouldn't be the first time something went wrong in the Middle East. But this––what snakes like Kristol and his ilk are doing––is psychopathic. They are actively trying to subvert to a nuclear weapons deal that is being celebrated across the globe. Imagine their glee if our peace negotiations fall through. Imagine their joy as we walk away from peace and inch closer and closer to another war, which they will invariably support as they do all wars. As long as Obama has some egg on his face it's worth it, right?

 

If you think this magazine is in any way a credible source on any subject except conservative political tactics and gamesmanship, you don't know anything about politics. And it's not because you're uninformed; it's because you're misinformed. They're playing you.

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X - I for one don't want it to fall apart as I note above. I hope this interim haggling going on - claim and counter claim - will bring the best possible agreement. It won't bother me one bit if Obama/Kerry gets the credit. In fact, I liked the fact that Obama was speaking to Cuba this past weekend. While I don't like or support Castro in any way, how we can have China as our #1 trading partner (which still have on going civil rights issues probably greater than Cuba's) and yet keep Cuba at arms length over 1960s Soviet action? I do understand the power of the Cuban/American voting block in the important state of Florida- it is probably the real reason for non-action by any party during the past 30 years. If the power of democracy & liberty has the power to persuade than I think we should try it 90 miles away. It seems it takes a president who isn't running again & a vision of what "can be' to have the freedom to begin the liberalization of relationships between our 2 countries.

 

You may be right on Weekly Standard article and B Kristal specifically. I know there are those who don't want any progress if it means the 'other side' gets credit.

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Make no mistake, the ones trying to unravel the deal framework are not really motivated by 'Obama getting the credit" they are in the pocket of the defense contractors who desperately want us involved in another long term foreign military operation that brings in billions of dollars in revenue to their businesses. Tom Cotton is your poster boy, talks about bombing Iran, then goes to a very secretive meeting of defense contractors.

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  • 2 months later...

So people are trying to sell us on the fact that Iran isn't and hasn't been trying to develop nuclear weapons even while they are actively trying to do just that.

 

The question is not whether Iran can be trusted to uphold the nuclear deal now being negotiated in Vienna (it can’t), but whether the Obama administration and its P5+1 partners can be trusted to punish Iran when it violates the agreement?

Experience shows that unless Iran violates the deal egregiously, the temptation will be to ignore it. For instance, Iran got away with selling more oil than it should have under the interim agreement. More ominously, Tehran repeatedly pushed the envelope on technical aspects of the agreement—such as caps on its uranium stockpile—and got away with it. The Obama administration and other Western powers have so much invested in their diplomatic efforts that they’ll deny such violations ever occurred.
More evidence of Iranian violations has now surfaced. Two reports regarding Iran's attempts to illicitly and clandestinely procure technology for its nuclear and ballistic missile programs have recently been published. They show that Iran's procurement continues apace, if not faster than before the Joint Plan of Action was signed in November 2013. But fear of potentially embarrassing negotiators and derailing negotiations has made some states reluctant to report Tehran’s illegal efforts. If these countries have hesitated to expose Iran during the negotiations, it is more likely they will refrain from reporting after a deal is struck.
The first report was released last month by the U.N. panel of experts in charge of reporting compliance with U.N. Security Council resolutions regarding Iran. The panel noted that U.N. member states had not reported significant violations of U.N. sanctions and speculated as to why: either Iran was complying, or countries did not wish to interfere with negotiations.

 

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So according to this deal, Iran can deny requests to inspect, which then has to be over rode by a board. I could be misunderstanding this, as I only am seeing an article, not the actually document. But that kind of sounds like it gives them some time to put stuff away until the coast is clear?

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There's a lot going on here, so I'll offer up the Vox page in case anyone else is interested in slowly going through it:

 

Vox: everything Iran deal

 

A few selections beyond their basic "explaining the deal" primer:

 

>> The Iran deal began with Bush in 2006

 

>> Obama's foreign policy

 

>> Ian Bremer (global research professor, NYU) opines on the deal

 

>> A summary of the pro-deal and anti-deal positions and where they're coming from

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