It’s Friday, July 17th, 2015…but before we begin, two quick thoughts. First, consider while The Dear Misleader is handing America’s most implacable foe the keys to a nuclear weapon, United States Marines…
…remain barred from carry sidearms while in uniform. Gee…it’s almost like someone’s pulling…
…for the other side!!!
Second, our two primary foci while studying history at the U.S. Naval Academy were the War Between the States and Nazi Germany. Two questions always vexed us about the Nazis: (1) what could Neville Chamberlain and his like-minded appeasers possibly have been thinking; and, (2) on what reservoir of evil were the Nazis able to draw to staff their SS Einsatzgruppen and Death Camps?!?
Both our questions were finally answered…
…in the last two days.
Now, here’s The Gouge!
Leading off the last edition of the week, courtesy of Balls Cotton and The Weekly Standard, Noah Pollak offers…
The Iran Deal, Explained
To cut through the rhetoric surrounding the Iran deal, and to better understand what the two sides conceded and gained, I’ve compiled a balance sheet on the Iran deal. It’s simple and non-technical; a basic list comparing what the U.S. gets versus what Iran gets. The reader is free to make up his own mind about the merits of the deal and the extent to which it advances U.S. interests and U.S. security, and that of our allies.
Forget how far away the terms of the deal may be from the ones President Obama insisted on two years ago, last year, or even last month. The saga of U.S. concessions to Iran is what’s known as a “process story,” and one thing the Obama years should teach us is that process stories – stories about how the administration achieves its policy objectives, as opposed to the policies themselves – have increasingly little purchase on our political debates.So, without further ado:
What we get:
– Iran reduces by about half the number of centrifuges actively enriching uranium
– Iran reduces its stockpile of enriched uranium from about five tons to 300 kilograms
– Iran repurposes its heavy water reactor in Arak so it does not produce plutonium
– An unspecified increase in inspections by the IAEA
* I.E., NOTHING!!!
What Iran gets:
Sanctions relief:
– Almost every type of U.S., EU, and UN sanctions lifted
– Repeal of six UN Security Council resolutions declaring the Iranian nuclear program illegal
– Top IRGC and Quds Force terrorists removed from the sanctions list, including Qassem Suleimani, leader of Iran’s campaign against U.S. soldiers in Iraq, and Ahmad Vahidi, mastermind of the 1994 Jewish community center bombing in Argentina that killed 85 people
– The removal from the sanctions list of approximately 800 people and legal entities, including 23 out of 24 Iranian banks
– $100 to $150 billion to be unfrozen and given to Iran with no restrictions on its use to purchase arms and fund terrorism, including funding for Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Assad regime in Syria
Nuclear program:
– Iran keeps every one of its nuclear centrifuges
– Iran keeps its entire physical nuclear infrastructure, including the enrichment facilities at Fordow and Natanz and the nuclear reactor at Bushehr
– Iran permitted to continue research and development on all of its advanced centrifuge designs, reducing nuclear breakout time at the end of the deal to weeks
– Iran permitted to transition its allowed enrichment of uranium from older centrifuge designs to advanced designs
– No “anywhere, anytime” inspections. Iran can delay inspection of any site for at least 24 days
– No requirement that Iran fully disclose past nuclear weapons research and development (known as the PMD issue)
– The P5+1 western powers pledge to collaborate with Iran on nuclear technology
– Restrictions on enrichment – part of the “sunset” of the deal – are lifted after eight years
– If Iran is thought to have violated the deal, in order to “snap back” sanctions a dispute resolution process must be undertaken that can last two and a half months, after which the matter can be referred to the UN Security Council. At the UNSC, the re-imposition of sanctions can be vetoed by Russia, which stands to earn billions of dollars from arms sales to a non-sanctioned Iran.
Concessions unrelated to nuclear program:
– Ballistic missile embargo lifted after eight years
– Conventional arms embargo lifted after five years
– Iran keeps U.S. hostages
I leave it to the reader to judge whether President Obama got the best deal he could.
Oh…Pollak missed one very important aspect of the Deal of the Century:
“…Under the terms of a deal that provides Iran billions of dollars in sanctions relief, Iran and global powers will cooperate to help teach Iran how to manage its nuclear infrastructure, which will largely remain in tact under the deal.
…This will include “training courses and workshops to strengthen Iran’s ability to prevent, protect and respond to nuclear security threats to nuclear facilities and systems as well as to enable effective and sustainable nuclear security and physical protection systems,” according to the text. Additional “training and workshops” would work to “strengthen Iran’s ability to protect against, and respond to nuclear security threats, including sabotage, as well as to enable effective and sustainable nuclear security and physical protection systems,” the text states.
The language was viewed as disturbing by analysts and experts who said such cooperation could help protect Iran against efforts by the Israelis or other countries to sabotage the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program in the future. “The United States and its partners have just become the international protectors of the Iranian nuclear program. Instead of rolling back the Iranian nuclear program, we’re now legally obligated to help the Iranians build it up and protect it,” said one Western source present in Vienna and who is apprised of the details of the deal…”
Think about it: the Marxist-in-Chief has just pledged the United States to train the Iranians to protect their nuclear program against all threats, cyber or physical, after we just got hacked by the ChiComs to the tune of some 24,000,000 classified records.
We cannot decide what’s worse; the President of the United States pledging to protect the nuclear weapons program of the world’s preeminent purveyor of terror…or Iran actually wanting Barry’s assistance?!?
James Taranto gets the final word on the subject of the biggest foreign policy sell-out since Munich:
“…Obama’s cynical view of “politicians”—meaning his domestic adversaries—is a recurring theme in his presidency. Usually he employs it against Republicans, though in May he said of left-wing Democrat Elizabeth Warren, who opposes his trade agenda, that “Elizabeth is, you know, a politician like everybody else.”
Of course it is true that politicians frequently “spin” and pander to their constituents. That’s part of democracy. But it’s bizarre and unsettling for Obama to wave away the triumphalist remarks of Bashar Assad or Ayatollah Ali Khameini as if they were democratic politicians trying to attract votes.Dictators don’t need votes.
Further, Obama is also a politician, and dismissing substantive objections as political “spin” is itself an instance of political spin. As is his answer to Israel’s objection:
For all the objections of Prime Minister Netanyahu, or, for that matter, some of the Republican leadership that’s already spoken, none of them have presented to me, or the American people, a better alternative.
I’m hearing a lot of talking points being repeated about “this is a bad deal”—“this is a historically bad deal,” “this will threaten Israel and threaten the world and threaten the United States.” I mean, there’s been a lot of that.
What I haven’t heard is, what is your preferred alternative? If 99% of the world community and the majority of nuclear experts look at this thing and they say, this will prevent Iran from getting a nuclear bomb, and you are arguing either that it does not, or that even if it does it’s temporary, or that because they’re going to get a windfall of their accounts being unfrozen that they’ll cause more problems, then you should have some alternative to present. And I haven’t heard that. And the reason is because there really are only two alternatives here: Either the issue of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon is resolved diplomatically through a negotiation, or it’s resolved through force, through war. Those are the options.
That’s an impressive display of faulty logic.(DELIBERATELYfaulty logic!!!) He’s got the argumentum ad populum (“99% of the world community”), the appeal to authority (“the majority of nuclear experts”) and the false dilemma, all in one paragraph.
As to what he means by “the world community” or by what method he has surveyed them to come up with that 99% figure, your guess is as good as ours. It may be significant, though, that when it comes to the “experts,” he claims the support of only a simple majority. And not only the Israelis but also some of Iran’s Arab neighbors do not share his view that this deal will prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons.Their views would seem more authoritative than that of a nebulous “world community.”
As to the false dilemma, The Wall Street Journal notes in an editorial today that there is “an alternative to his diplomacy of concessions,” which “many critics have suggested”: “It’s called coercive diplomacy, and it might have worked to get a better deal if Mr. Obama had tried it.”One might add that even accepting the premise that some sort of deal is ultimately necessary, it does not follow that it was necessary to strike a deal now.
The answer to the question “Why now?” seems obvious: With his presidency nearing an end, Obama was determined to strike a deal, any deal, to cement his legacy…”
And what a legacy…
…he leaves!!!
Since we’re on the subject of injurious legacies, courtesy of Politico via Drudge, Lindsay Grahamnesty’s best buddy has something to say:
So now, at least according to John McCain…the guy who ditched his crippled wife for a buxom beer heiress…advocating for a secure southern border is crazy; wanting foreign criminals incarcerated and/or deported, then kept permanently out of the country defines insanity; the belief tens of millions of unskilled, illiterate, poverty-stricken illegal immigrants inexplicably benefits the United States about as much as the Barry/Kerry Iran deal makes one certifiable.
Anyone who knows us understands we’re no fan of Donald Trump, but neither do we have any affinity for John McCain. So color us,”Yeah…
…rrrriiiight!”
Meanwhile, back at the ranch with the guy we’d like to see finally afforded the opportunity to sharpen the aim of The Gang Who Still Can’t Shoot Straight, the WSJ observes…
“Well, that sure is definitive.We’re referring to Thursday’s sweeping 4-2 ruling by the Wisconsin Supreme Court shutting down a nearly three-year secret investigation that tried to muzzle conservative groups and cripple Governor Scott Walker…”
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