[h=1]Netanyahu and His Marionettes[/h] Posted: 08/07/2015 6:34 pm EDT Updated: 08/10/2015 10:59 am
Benjamin Netanyahu is laying siege to the Congress of the United States, not for the first time. He has thrown his voice and channeled his influence into the arena of American legislative politics, to abort the P5+1 nuclear settlement with Iran, which was signed on July 14 by the US, Britain, France, Germany, China, and Russia. The Israeli strong man's latest intervention is in keeping with the rest of his political career. Netanyahu owes all his importance and his success to actions that have been purely destructive.
He was first elected in 1996 on the wave of Israeli settler chauvinism that followed the signing of the Oslo Accords. His rise occurred in the wake of the assassination of his opponent, a courageous defender of the accords, Yitzhak Rabin. A public memorandum detailing the strategy for Netanyahu as leader of Israel was written by the neoconservative war propagandist Richard Perle, along with a small committee of others. The strategy document, "A Clean Break," called for Israel to free itself from the tedious demands of diplomacy once and for all, curtail its efforts to negotiate with Palestinians toward the creation of a state, and give up the idea of joining a neighborhood of nations in the Middle East. With American help, instead, Israel could stand alone as the dominant power, a position it should never compromise by bargaining for peace. To achieve this end, three countries had to be undermined, subdivided, or destroyed: Iraq, Syria, and Iran.
So far, things have gone roughly according to plan. Iraq and Syria are out of the picture -- the latter with considerable satisfaction to the people around Netanyahu. But Iran has continued to pose a stumbling block; and as early as 2008, Barack Obama's interest in lowering the terrorist threat to the US by calming the violence of the region was perceived by Netanyahu as a threat to his plan for dominance.
From their first meeting in 2009, Netanyahu made it plain that Obama was an obstacle to be overcome by any means necessary -- political assaults from the rear and flanks; concocted international incidents; speeches to Congress and the United Nations and AIPAC and Congress again. Obama was to be treated as an enemy in all but name. The story was to be circulated that Obama, possibly from motives of racial resentment, was profoundly unfriendly to the state of Israel. In the six years that followed their first meeting in May 2009, a continuous strand of Netanyahu's foreign policy has been devoted to weakening the Obama presidency.
Over the same period, the Republican party set itself as a primary goal the nullification of everything Obama proposed. It was natural therefore that its alliance with Netanyahu would grow increasingly public. Only self-respect in the Republicans and a sense of decency in Netanyahu could have prevented it. But one should not underrate the element of racism in Netanyahu's resolve. On the day of the last Israeli election, in March 2015, which ended by returning him to office with a far-right, settler-based coalition, Netanyahu sent a panic Facebook message to his followers. "The right-wing government is in danger," he wrote. "Arab voters are coming out in droves to the polls. Left-wing organizations are busing them out." His followers had a particular duty to vote in order to offset the droves of Arabs.
Now, "droves" is a word normally applied to cattle, just as "swarm" is applied to insects and "hordes" to murderous barbarians. The chairmen of White Citizens' Councils in the American South in the 1950s used to warn their faithful against the "hordes of n-----s" that would vote them out of office unless white people came out and voted. For Netanyahu, President Obama has always been one of the "droves." He has treated Obama with a degree of disrespect approaching and often crossing into contempt, without parallel in the previous relations of American leaders and our professed allies. The black caucus noticed this when they boycotted Netanyahu's speech to Congress in March; and among Jewish lawmakers, Dianne Feinstein has spoken with well-earned disgust of Netanyahu's "arrogant" presumption that he speaks for all Jews.
Reactions of this sort are likely to intensify among those (including the present writer) who feel the disgrace of a foreign leader singling us out in a speech carried in US media, which was addressed peculiarly to Jewish Americans and implicitly separated our interests from those of other Americans. The gesture embodied by such a speech bears a family resemblance to incitement to treason. Imagine a leader of India puffing himself up to deliver a special address to Americans of Indian descent, asking them to subvert the authority of the president who signed a trade deal the Indian prime minister judges to be disadvantageous. And yet, the relations today of Netanyahu to many of the biggest American Jewish donors, and of the same donors to the Republican Party -- these linkages are so extended and tangled that lesser actors can barely account for their actions. But they feel no responsibility to render an account. They only know that their arms and legs move obediently to execute a pilgrimage to Jerusalem or Las Vegas. And then they vote and then comes the money.
The defection to the Republican side by Chuck Schumer was predictable, but the terms in which he cast his decision tell us much about the man and the situation. It has been said that one can judge a politician's intent not only by the things he says but by the things he crucially omits. In Schumer's written defense of his vote with the war party, in a text of some 1,700 words apparently drafted by the senator himself, a word that never appears is "Israel." (The exception is the almost anonymous appearance of the country in a catalogue with five other countries said to have been direct or indirect victims of Iran). But depend on it, Israel was on Schumer's mind.
He has often said, with an artless self-love, that his name in Hebrew, "shomer," means "guardian"; and he takes pride in the fact because he thinks of himself as the appointed guardian of Israel's interests in the US. How bizarre and again how unprecedented this is! Think of any other nation in the world. Imagine an Italian-American named Frank Consiglieri assuring his listeners that his name means "advocate" in Italian and he is supremely vigilant for the interests of Italy as a lawmaker in the US.
Schumer voted for the Iraq war on a rationale similar to the one he now urges as the path of reason and good sense with Iran. He may or may not recognize that he is only assisting the Likud and the neoconservatives with part three of the Middle East "clean break" strategy: Iraq, Syria, Iran. Their calculation is simple. When the work of destruction is complete, one country in the region will stand upright and intact amid the surrounding rubble.
How many Americans know that the Iran deal is supported by the vast majority of Israel's defense and security establishment? The opinions of the security officials within Netanyahu's government are impossible to discern because they have been placed under gag order; but the suffrage of qualified judges in Israel, as also in Europe, Russia, China, and the IAEA, forms a strange contrast with the current alignments in America. "As unanimous as the politicians are in backing the prime minister," J.J. Goldberg recently wrote in Forward, "the generals and spymasters are nearly as unanimous in questioning him. Generals publicly backing Netanyahu can be counted on -- well -- one finger." Equally strange is the fact that security support for the deal is an open secret in the Israeli press, and in an American Jewish paper like Forward, but the evidence is subordinated to a point of near invisibility in the New York Times and other mainstream outlets.
In defending the deal, in the most sober, straightforward, unapologetically argumentative and honest speech of his career, President Obama spelled out the reasons why its acceptance would surrender no opportunity while rejection would squander a chance that will not return.
Obama delivered this speech at American University -- recalling President Kennedy's speech in support of the Test Ban Treaty at the same institution 52 years ago -- and with full awareness of the parallel he said: "Does anyone really doubt that the same voices now raised against this deal will be demanding that whoever is President bomb those nuclear facilities?" Kennedy at a press conference on August 20, 1963 faced a similar pretense of scientific skepticism founded on destructive intent, and had to answer questions about the opposition of Dr. Edward Teller, a fierce advocate of atmospheric nuclear testing. Asked whether he had curtailed a recent series of tests for political reasons, Kennedy replied:
Meanwhile, 58 members of the US Congress have landed in Jerusalem, on a visit set to last from August 4 to August 10. Their trip was bought and paid for by the charitable arm of AIPAC. The lawmakers obeyed the command of Prime Minister Netanyahu to visit him instead of their own constituents in early August if they want support in the future by prominent Jewish donors. A gesture of more abject servility cannot be imagined. By agreeing to take the trip at this time -- so easy to decline if only for the perception of the thing -- these captive representatives have in effect declared their confidence in Netanyahu and their dependence on his favor. He will come back for more.
Very likely we can expect to hear something from the same representatives concerning the "flaws" in the Iran deal which Schumer says prompted his early declaration of a negative vote. "Even more troubling [than the 24-day delay on inspections]," said Schumer," is the fact that the US cannot demand inspections unilaterally." The demand for immediate inspections, any time, any place, is not an initiative of Schumer's at all but a late-found and richly publicized Netanyahu obstruction, like his demand that Iran recognize Israel as "the Jewish state." It is tantamount to setting a precondition of total and round-the-clock American surveillance of Iranian sites. The only government that would submit to such a regimen is a client government; and the objection could only be satisfied in the aftermath of regime change.
The most puzzling detail in Schumer's defense of his negative vote is the reversal on which it closes. He admits that the heart of the nuclear deal works against the development of nuclear weapons quite effectively. "When it comes to the nuclear aspects of the agreement within ten years, we might be slightly better off with it. However, when it comes to the nuclear aspects after ten years and the non-nuclear aspects, we would be better off without it." There, for all his elaborate show of scruple, he gives the game away. The "nuclear aspects" are the substance of the agreement. That is why they call it the nuclear deal. But no, for Netanyahu and Schumer what offends is the prospect of Iran's re-entry into the global community as a trading partner and a non-nuclear regional power of some resourcefulness. This emergence can only curb Israel's wish to dominate for another half century as it has done for the past half century. That, and not anything resembling an "existential threat," is the real transition at issue.
In conclusion, Schumer tells his Democratic listeners that he does not want a war with Iran; but this is a hollow pretense. The preponderance of influential persons who side with him, as they did on Iraq in 2003, do indeed want a war, and they say they do. They say that war is inevitable, and that the sooner we get over delusions of compromise, the better for Israel and America. Even if he were in earnest, what could the peaceable Senator Chuck Schumer do? A shomer, after all, a guardian and not a buccaneer -- how could he prevail against the many who are made of sterner stuff? The Republican candidate now ranked third in the polls, Scott Walker, has said he would bomb Iran on his first day as president.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-bromwich/netanyahu-and-his-marione_b_7958146.html
Benjamin Netanyahu is laying siege to the Congress of the United States, not for the first time. He has thrown his voice and channeled his influence into the arena of American legislative politics, to abort the P5+1 nuclear settlement with Iran, which was signed on July 14 by the US, Britain, France, Germany, China, and Russia. The Israeli strong man's latest intervention is in keeping with the rest of his political career. Netanyahu owes all his importance and his success to actions that have been purely destructive.
He was first elected in 1996 on the wave of Israeli settler chauvinism that followed the signing of the Oslo Accords. His rise occurred in the wake of the assassination of his opponent, a courageous defender of the accords, Yitzhak Rabin. A public memorandum detailing the strategy for Netanyahu as leader of Israel was written by the neoconservative war propagandist Richard Perle, along with a small committee of others. The strategy document, "A Clean Break," called for Israel to free itself from the tedious demands of diplomacy once and for all, curtail its efforts to negotiate with Palestinians toward the creation of a state, and give up the idea of joining a neighborhood of nations in the Middle East. With American help, instead, Israel could stand alone as the dominant power, a position it should never compromise by bargaining for peace. To achieve this end, three countries had to be undermined, subdivided, or destroyed: Iraq, Syria, and Iran.
So far, things have gone roughly according to plan. Iraq and Syria are out of the picture -- the latter with considerable satisfaction to the people around Netanyahu. But Iran has continued to pose a stumbling block; and as early as 2008, Barack Obama's interest in lowering the terrorist threat to the US by calming the violence of the region was perceived by Netanyahu as a threat to his plan for dominance.
From their first meeting in 2009, Netanyahu made it plain that Obama was an obstacle to be overcome by any means necessary -- political assaults from the rear and flanks; concocted international incidents; speeches to Congress and the United Nations and AIPAC and Congress again. Obama was to be treated as an enemy in all but name. The story was to be circulated that Obama, possibly from motives of racial resentment, was profoundly unfriendly to the state of Israel. In the six years that followed their first meeting in May 2009, a continuous strand of Netanyahu's foreign policy has been devoted to weakening the Obama presidency.
Over the same period, the Republican party set itself as a primary goal the nullification of everything Obama proposed. It was natural therefore that its alliance with Netanyahu would grow increasingly public. Only self-respect in the Republicans and a sense of decency in Netanyahu could have prevented it. But one should not underrate the element of racism in Netanyahu's resolve. On the day of the last Israeli election, in March 2015, which ended by returning him to office with a far-right, settler-based coalition, Netanyahu sent a panic Facebook message to his followers. "The right-wing government is in danger," he wrote. "Arab voters are coming out in droves to the polls. Left-wing organizations are busing them out." His followers had a particular duty to vote in order to offset the droves of Arabs.
Now, "droves" is a word normally applied to cattle, just as "swarm" is applied to insects and "hordes" to murderous barbarians. The chairmen of White Citizens' Councils in the American South in the 1950s used to warn their faithful against the "hordes of n-----s" that would vote them out of office unless white people came out and voted. For Netanyahu, President Obama has always been one of the "droves." He has treated Obama with a degree of disrespect approaching and often crossing into contempt, without parallel in the previous relations of American leaders and our professed allies. The black caucus noticed this when they boycotted Netanyahu's speech to Congress in March; and among Jewish lawmakers, Dianne Feinstein has spoken with well-earned disgust of Netanyahu's "arrogant" presumption that he speaks for all Jews.
Reactions of this sort are likely to intensify among those (including the present writer) who feel the disgrace of a foreign leader singling us out in a speech carried in US media, which was addressed peculiarly to Jewish Americans and implicitly separated our interests from those of other Americans. The gesture embodied by such a speech bears a family resemblance to incitement to treason. Imagine a leader of India puffing himself up to deliver a special address to Americans of Indian descent, asking them to subvert the authority of the president who signed a trade deal the Indian prime minister judges to be disadvantageous. And yet, the relations today of Netanyahu to many of the biggest American Jewish donors, and of the same donors to the Republican Party -- these linkages are so extended and tangled that lesser actors can barely account for their actions. But they feel no responsibility to render an account. They only know that their arms and legs move obediently to execute a pilgrimage to Jerusalem or Las Vegas. And then they vote and then comes the money.
The defection to the Republican side by Chuck Schumer was predictable, but the terms in which he cast his decision tell us much about the man and the situation. It has been said that one can judge a politician's intent not only by the things he says but by the things he crucially omits. In Schumer's written defense of his vote with the war party, in a text of some 1,700 words apparently drafted by the senator himself, a word that never appears is "Israel." (The exception is the almost anonymous appearance of the country in a catalogue with five other countries said to have been direct or indirect victims of Iran). But depend on it, Israel was on Schumer's mind.
He has often said, with an artless self-love, that his name in Hebrew, "shomer," means "guardian"; and he takes pride in the fact because he thinks of himself as the appointed guardian of Israel's interests in the US. How bizarre and again how unprecedented this is! Think of any other nation in the world. Imagine an Italian-American named Frank Consiglieri assuring his listeners that his name means "advocate" in Italian and he is supremely vigilant for the interests of Italy as a lawmaker in the US.
Schumer voted for the Iraq war on a rationale similar to the one he now urges as the path of reason and good sense with Iran. He may or may not recognize that he is only assisting the Likud and the neoconservatives with part three of the Middle East "clean break" strategy: Iraq, Syria, Iran. Their calculation is simple. When the work of destruction is complete, one country in the region will stand upright and intact amid the surrounding rubble.
How many Americans know that the Iran deal is supported by the vast majority of Israel's defense and security establishment? The opinions of the security officials within Netanyahu's government are impossible to discern because they have been placed under gag order; but the suffrage of qualified judges in Israel, as also in Europe, Russia, China, and the IAEA, forms a strange contrast with the current alignments in America. "As unanimous as the politicians are in backing the prime minister," J.J. Goldberg recently wrote in Forward, "the generals and spymasters are nearly as unanimous in questioning him. Generals publicly backing Netanyahu can be counted on -- well -- one finger." Equally strange is the fact that security support for the deal is an open secret in the Israeli press, and in an American Jewish paper like Forward, but the evidence is subordinated to a point of near invisibility in the New York Times and other mainstream outlets.
In defending the deal, in the most sober, straightforward, unapologetically argumentative and honest speech of his career, President Obama spelled out the reasons why its acceptance would surrender no opportunity while rejection would squander a chance that will not return.
If, in a worst-case scenario, Iran violates the deal, the same options that are available to me today will be available to any U.S. president in the future. And I have no doubt that 10 or 15 years from now, the person who holds this office will be in a far stronger position with Iran further away from a weapon and with the inspections and transparency that allow us to monitor the Iranian program.
Politicians and propagandists who oppose the deal have spoken of fifteen years as if it were the blink of an eye; but fifteen years is a long time in the history of a nation; and Americans should know it. Fifteen years ago George W. Bush had not yet won the presidency and delivered to the world his vision of a new Middle East. Destruction makes faster work than rebuilding or reform, but much that is good can happen in fifteen years.
Obama delivered this speech at American University -- recalling President Kennedy's speech in support of the Test Ban Treaty at the same institution 52 years ago -- and with full awareness of the parallel he said: "Does anyone really doubt that the same voices now raised against this deal will be demanding that whoever is President bomb those nuclear facilities?" Kennedy at a press conference on August 20, 1963 faced a similar pretense of scientific skepticism founded on destructive intent, and had to answer questions about the opposition of Dr. Edward Teller, a fierce advocate of atmospheric nuclear testing. Asked whether he had curtailed a recent series of tests for political reasons, Kennedy replied:
Obviously, we don't like to test in the atmosphere unless the test is essential. Every test in the atmosphere produces fallout and we would, it seems to me, be remiss in not attempting to keep the number of tests to the minimum, consistent with our national security. ... So we kept a careful eye, and we in fact did more tests, several more tests than we had originally planned six months before. ... I think that they were an impressive series. But it would be very difficult, I think, to satisfy Dr. Teller in this field.
Schumer is following the Dr. Tellers of our age, but they have invented nothing, improved nothing, are good at nothing except starting wars. They are, however, trained and seasoned by experience in the art of spreading fear. By joining their ranks again in 2015, as he did in 2003, Chuck Schumer has made much harder the fight against the chief hope today for lowering the risk of nuclear proliferation. He has done it for reasons no more compelling than those that drove the feverish opposition to Kennedy in 1963.
Meanwhile, 58 members of the US Congress have landed in Jerusalem, on a visit set to last from August 4 to August 10. Their trip was bought and paid for by the charitable arm of AIPAC. The lawmakers obeyed the command of Prime Minister Netanyahu to visit him instead of their own constituents in early August if they want support in the future by prominent Jewish donors. A gesture of more abject servility cannot be imagined. By agreeing to take the trip at this time -- so easy to decline if only for the perception of the thing -- these captive representatives have in effect declared their confidence in Netanyahu and their dependence on his favor. He will come back for more.
Very likely we can expect to hear something from the same representatives concerning the "flaws" in the Iran deal which Schumer says prompted his early declaration of a negative vote. "Even more troubling [than the 24-day delay on inspections]," said Schumer," is the fact that the US cannot demand inspections unilaterally." The demand for immediate inspections, any time, any place, is not an initiative of Schumer's at all but a late-found and richly publicized Netanyahu obstruction, like his demand that Iran recognize Israel as "the Jewish state." It is tantamount to setting a precondition of total and round-the-clock American surveillance of Iranian sites. The only government that would submit to such a regimen is a client government; and the objection could only be satisfied in the aftermath of regime change.
The most puzzling detail in Schumer's defense of his negative vote is the reversal on which it closes. He admits that the heart of the nuclear deal works against the development of nuclear weapons quite effectively. "When it comes to the nuclear aspects of the agreement within ten years, we might be slightly better off with it. However, when it comes to the nuclear aspects after ten years and the non-nuclear aspects, we would be better off without it." There, for all his elaborate show of scruple, he gives the game away. The "nuclear aspects" are the substance of the agreement. That is why they call it the nuclear deal. But no, for Netanyahu and Schumer what offends is the prospect of Iran's re-entry into the global community as a trading partner and a non-nuclear regional power of some resourcefulness. This emergence can only curb Israel's wish to dominate for another half century as it has done for the past half century. That, and not anything resembling an "existential threat," is the real transition at issue.
In conclusion, Schumer tells his Democratic listeners that he does not want a war with Iran; but this is a hollow pretense. The preponderance of influential persons who side with him, as they did on Iraq in 2003, do indeed want a war, and they say they do. They say that war is inevitable, and that the sooner we get over delusions of compromise, the better for Israel and America. Even if he were in earnest, what could the peaceable Senator Chuck Schumer do? A shomer, after all, a guardian and not a buccaneer -- how could he prevail against the many who are made of sterner stuff? The Republican candidate now ranked third in the polls, Scott Walker, has said he would bomb Iran on his first day as president.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-bromwich/netanyahu-and-his-marione_b_7958146.html
[h=1]Head of Group Opposing Iran Accord Quits Post, Saying He Backs Deal[/h] By MICHAEL R. GORDONAUG. 11, 2015
Continue reading the main story
WASHINGTON — When the bipartisan advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran decided last week to mobilize opposition against the nuclear deal with Tehran, Gary Samore knew he could no longer serve as its president.
The reason: After long study, Mr. Samore, a former nuclear adviser to President Obama, had concluded that the accord was in the United States’ interest.
“I think President Obama’s strategy succeeded,” said Mr. Samore, who left his post on Monday. “He has created economic leverage and traded it away for Iranian nuclear concessions.”
As soon as Mr. Samore left, the group announced a new standard-bearer with a decidedly different message: Joseph I. Lieberman, the former senator from Connecticut and the new chairman of the group.
“It’s a bad deal,” said Mr. Lieberman, who believes that lawmakers have a chance to block the accord even if that means overcoming a presidential veto. “If the Iranians are pressured more, I think we can get a better agreement.”
To get that message across, the group has announced a multimillion-dollar television and digital media campaign.
Yet it is Mr. Samore’s quiet departure as president of the organization that is resonating among the small community of experts who have pored over the agreement.
Mr. Samore helped establish the organization in 2008, well before serious nuclear talks were underway. The aim was to strengthen the international economic sanctions against Iran, which Mr. Samore was convinced had been mounting a clandestine effort to develop nuclear weapons.
Mr. Samore, who traveled to Iran in 2005, is well known to the Iranians. At a dinner that Mr. Samore attended during a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in 2013, Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, repeated assurances that Iran’s nuclear efforts were entirely peaceful.
“We are all united against a nuclear Iran,” he quipped, as he cast a glance at Mr. Samore.
Mr. Samore, who now runs the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard, initially said that the chances of a successful negotiation were dim. But after the framework of an accord was announced in Lausanne, Switzerland, in April, he praised it as a good first step.
Mark D. Wallace, the chief executive of the group and a diplomat in the George W. Bush administration, said that the organization’s members had sought to keep an open mind. But after the final terms became clear, “The opposition was nearly unanimous,” he said.
With that move, it was clear that Mr. Samore needed to move on.
“We had an honest discussion that I wouldn’t be able to continue to serve as president if UANI was going to come out against the agreement, since I support it,” Mr. Samore said.
“Nonetheless, I support the work that UANI has done in the past to strengthen sanctions, and I think they will have a role to play in the future to maintain nonnuclear sanctions if the deal goes forward,” he said. (He will continue to serve on the group’s advisory board.)
Though he backs the accord as the most that can be achieved diplomatically, Mr. Samore is skeptical that the agreement will open a new chapter in American-Iranian relations.
“The best you can achieve with diplomacy is delay in the hope that at some point a new Iranian government emerges that is not committed to developing nuclear weapons,” he said.
And if that leadership does not materialize, Mr. Samore acknowledges that Iran might vastly expand its nuclear enrichment program after core elements of the agreement expire in 15 years.
He is also not convinced that Iran will continue to adhere to the accord once economic sanctions are lifted. Even so, he argues, the accord will put the United States in a stronger position to respond than a congressional rejection would.
“We will have bought a couple of years, and if Iran cheats or reneges we will be in an even better position to double down on sanctions or, if necessary, use military force,” Mr. Samore said. “If I knew for certain that in five years they would cheat or renege, I’d still take the deal.”
Continue reading the main story
WASHINGTON — When the bipartisan advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran decided last week to mobilize opposition against the nuclear deal with Tehran, Gary Samore knew he could no longer serve as its president.
The reason: After long study, Mr. Samore, a former nuclear adviser to President Obama, had concluded that the accord was in the United States’ interest.
“I think President Obama’s strategy succeeded,” said Mr. Samore, who left his post on Monday. “He has created economic leverage and traded it away for Iranian nuclear concessions.”
As soon as Mr. Samore left, the group announced a new standard-bearer with a decidedly different message: Joseph I. Lieberman, the former senator from Connecticut and the new chairman of the group.
“It’s a bad deal,” said Mr. Lieberman, who believes that lawmakers have a chance to block the accord even if that means overcoming a presidential veto. “If the Iranians are pressured more, I think we can get a better agreement.”
To get that message across, the group has announced a multimillion-dollar television and digital media campaign.
Yet it is Mr. Samore’s quiet departure as president of the organization that is resonating among the small community of experts who have pored over the agreement.
Mr. Samore helped establish the organization in 2008, well before serious nuclear talks were underway. The aim was to strengthen the international economic sanctions against Iran, which Mr. Samore was convinced had been mounting a clandestine effort to develop nuclear weapons.
Mr. Samore, who traveled to Iran in 2005, is well known to the Iranians. At a dinner that Mr. Samore attended during a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in 2013, Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, repeated assurances that Iran’s nuclear efforts were entirely peaceful.
“We are all united against a nuclear Iran,” he quipped, as he cast a glance at Mr. Samore.
Mr. Samore, who now runs the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard, initially said that the chances of a successful negotiation were dim. But after the framework of an accord was announced in Lausanne, Switzerland, in April, he praised it as a good first step.
Mark D. Wallace, the chief executive of the group and a diplomat in the George W. Bush administration, said that the organization’s members had sought to keep an open mind. But after the final terms became clear, “The opposition was nearly unanimous,” he said.
With that move, it was clear that Mr. Samore needed to move on.
“We had an honest discussion that I wouldn’t be able to continue to serve as president if UANI was going to come out against the agreement, since I support it,” Mr. Samore said.
“Nonetheless, I support the work that UANI has done in the past to strengthen sanctions, and I think they will have a role to play in the future to maintain nonnuclear sanctions if the deal goes forward,” he said. (He will continue to serve on the group’s advisory board.)
Though he backs the accord as the most that can be achieved diplomatically, Mr. Samore is skeptical that the agreement will open a new chapter in American-Iranian relations.
“The best you can achieve with diplomacy is delay in the hope that at some point a new Iranian government emerges that is not committed to developing nuclear weapons,” he said.
And if that leadership does not materialize, Mr. Samore acknowledges that Iran might vastly expand its nuclear enrichment program after core elements of the agreement expire in 15 years.
He is also not convinced that Iran will continue to adhere to the accord once economic sanctions are lifted. Even so, he argues, the accord will put the United States in a stronger position to respond than a congressional rejection would.
“We will have bought a couple of years, and if Iran cheats or reneges we will be in an even better position to double down on sanctions or, if necessary, use military force,” Mr. Samore said. “If I knew for certain that in five years they would cheat or renege, I’d still take the deal.”
Foreign Policy White House Should Leave Politics Out of Iran Deal
653 Aug 10, 2015 4:03 PM EDT By Michael R. Bloomberg
If you oppose the Iranian nuclear agreement, you are increasing the chances of war. And if you are a Democrat who opposes the agreement, you are also risking your political career. That's the message the White House and some liberal leaders are sending -- and they ought to stop now, because they are only hurting their credibility.
I have deep reservations about the Iranian nuclear agreement, but I -- like many Americans -- am still weighing the evidence for and against it. This is one of the most important debates of our time, one with huge implications for our future and security and the stability of the world. Yet instead of attempting to persuade Americans on the merits, supporters of the deal are resorting to intimidation and demonization, while also grossly overstating their case.
Last week, President Barack Obama said that it was not a difficult decision to endorse the agreement. I couldn't disagree more. This is an extraordinarily difficult decision, and the president's case would be more compelling if he stopped minimizing the agreement's weaknesses and exaggerating its benefits. If he believes that the deal "permanently prohibits Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon," as he said in his speech at American University last Wednesday, then he should take another look at the agreement, whose restrictions end suddenly after 15 years, with some of the constraints on uranium enrichment melting away after just 10.
Overstating the case for the agreement belies the gravity of the issue and does more to breed distrust than win support. Smearing critics is even less effective. In his speech, the president suggested that critics of the deal are the same people who argued for the war in Iraq. The message wasn't very subtle: Those who oppose the agreement are warmongers. (Of course, those who voted for the Iraq War resolution in 2002 include Obama's vice president and secretary of state.)
Then he went further, saying: "It's those hardliners chanting 'Death to America' who have been most opposed to the deal. They're making common cause with the Republican caucus." From a president who often complains about hyperpartisanship, and whose stated aim is to elevate the discourse, the public deserved something better.
Emblematic of all this -- and what has prompted me to write -- was the treatment of Senator Chuck Schumer. In his thoughtful statement opposing the deal, Schumer noted that the best course of action is not clear. Reasonable people can and do disagree.
Yet rather than acknowledging a respectful difference of opinion, the president's spokesperson and others close to the White House suggested that Schumer's decision may cost him the opportunity to become the leader of the Senate's Democratic caucus. What they should have said is: President Obama signed legislation that gives Congress a voice on any deal with Iran. This debate is far bigger than partisan politics, and personal political considerations should play no role in deciding it.
Schumer is right that this is a vote of conscience. Each member of Congress, after closely studying the deal and listening to all arguments on both sides, ought to decide the matter on the merits -- and the White House should be focused on making the case on the merits, instead of using campaign-style tactics to pressure Democrats into standing together.
The White House's behavior is especially disappointing given the way the negotiations unfolded. Every negotiation comes with give-and-take. This one was no exception. Significant concessions were made at the last moment, including on ballistic missiles and arms. These were surprising changes and they come with large implications that require careful scrutiny.
In his speech last week, the president said that Congress must decide "whether to support this historic diplomatic breakthrough" or to block it "over the objection of the vast majority of the world."
Congress should not act based on the opinion of the rest of the world, nor the opinion of the American public, which opposes the agreement by a 2-to-1 margin, according to a recent poll. Congress should make its own hard and careful assessment of the agreement -- something it cannot possibly do without seeing the yet-to-be-revealed side deals. How can you vote on a pact that you haven't been able to read in full?
Once it has reviewed the full deal, Congress should consider what it means for the future, and then it should lead, drawing on the facts and leaving the politics aside. The White House should do the same.
653 Aug 10, 2015 4:03 PM EDT By Michael R. Bloomberg
If you oppose the Iranian nuclear agreement, you are increasing the chances of war. And if you are a Democrat who opposes the agreement, you are also risking your political career. That's the message the White House and some liberal leaders are sending -- and they ought to stop now, because they are only hurting their credibility.
I have deep reservations about the Iranian nuclear agreement, but I -- like many Americans -- am still weighing the evidence for and against it. This is one of the most important debates of our time, one with huge implications for our future and security and the stability of the world. Yet instead of attempting to persuade Americans on the merits, supporters of the deal are resorting to intimidation and demonization, while also grossly overstating their case.
Last week, President Barack Obama said that it was not a difficult decision to endorse the agreement. I couldn't disagree more. This is an extraordinarily difficult decision, and the president's case would be more compelling if he stopped minimizing the agreement's weaknesses and exaggerating its benefits. If he believes that the deal "permanently prohibits Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon," as he said in his speech at American University last Wednesday, then he should take another look at the agreement, whose restrictions end suddenly after 15 years, with some of the constraints on uranium enrichment melting away after just 10.
Overstating the case for the agreement belies the gravity of the issue and does more to breed distrust than win support. Smearing critics is even less effective. In his speech, the president suggested that critics of the deal are the same people who argued for the war in Iraq. The message wasn't very subtle: Those who oppose the agreement are warmongers. (Of course, those who voted for the Iraq War resolution in 2002 include Obama's vice president and secretary of state.)
Then he went further, saying: "It's those hardliners chanting 'Death to America' who have been most opposed to the deal. They're making common cause with the Republican caucus." From a president who often complains about hyperpartisanship, and whose stated aim is to elevate the discourse, the public deserved something better.
Emblematic of all this -- and what has prompted me to write -- was the treatment of Senator Chuck Schumer. In his thoughtful statement opposing the deal, Schumer noted that the best course of action is not clear. Reasonable people can and do disagree.
Yet rather than acknowledging a respectful difference of opinion, the president's spokesperson and others close to the White House suggested that Schumer's decision may cost him the opportunity to become the leader of the Senate's Democratic caucus. What they should have said is: President Obama signed legislation that gives Congress a voice on any deal with Iran. This debate is far bigger than partisan politics, and personal political considerations should play no role in deciding it.
Schumer is right that this is a vote of conscience. Each member of Congress, after closely studying the deal and listening to all arguments on both sides, ought to decide the matter on the merits -- and the White House should be focused on making the case on the merits, instead of using campaign-style tactics to pressure Democrats into standing together.
The White House's behavior is especially disappointing given the way the negotiations unfolded. Every negotiation comes with give-and-take. This one was no exception. Significant concessions were made at the last moment, including on ballistic missiles and arms. These were surprising changes and they come with large implications that require careful scrutiny.
In his speech last week, the president said that Congress must decide "whether to support this historic diplomatic breakthrough" or to block it "over the objection of the vast majority of the world."
Congress should not act based on the opinion of the rest of the world, nor the opinion of the American public, which opposes the agreement by a 2-to-1 margin, according to a recent poll. Congress should make its own hard and careful assessment of the agreement -- something it cannot possibly do without seeing the yet-to-be-revealed side deals. How can you vote on a pact that you haven't been able to read in full?
Once it has reviewed the full deal, Congress should consider what it means for the future, and then it should lead, drawing on the facts and leaving the politics aside. The White House should do the same.
Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.), ranking House Dem on the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, or U.S. Helsinki Commission, and a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, got quickly to the point in a Palm Beach Post op-ed: “After careful review, I have decided that I cannot support this deal.”
“The goal of the recently concluded negotiations was to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. The negotiators worked diligently, but in the end, the JCPOA allows Iran to remain a nuclear threshold state while simultaneously reaping the benefits of relief from international sanctions,” Hastings wrote.
“The goal of the recently concluded negotiations was to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. The negotiators worked diligently, but in the end, the JCPOA allows Iran to remain a nuclear threshold state while simultaneously reaping the benefits of relief from international sanctions,” Hastings wrote.
Too bad everyone isn't getting their talking points from anti-Jewish Web site like spammy the rat:'
[h=1]Just 1 in 3 approves of Obama's handling of Iran[/h]
While 33 percent surveyed in the poll approve Obama's handling of the Iranian situation, 55 percent disapprove — the same percentage that disapprove of his handling of terrorism and foreign affairs.
[h=1]Just 1 in 3 approves of Obama's handling of Iran[/h]
While 33 percent surveyed in the poll approve Obama's handling of the Iranian situation, 55 percent disapprove — the same percentage that disapprove of his handling of terrorism and foreign affairs.
- House Majority Leader McCarthy: I Share Netanyahu's Concerns about Iran Deal - Tovah Lazaroff
On Sunday, President Obama told CNN that Prime Minister Netanyahu has interjected himself into Washington politics more forcibly than any other foreign leader. But on Thursday, U.S. House of Representatives Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said that Netanyahu was simply doing his job as Israel's leader. "I do not see where Benjamin Netanyahu was interfering with anything," said McCarthy, just one day after he and 35 other visiting Republican congressmen met with Netanyahu. "He is elected by the State of Israel and voices the opinion of the state on security," McCarthy said.
Netanyahu "did not tell us how to vote. Much like every other leader of any other country, he conveyed what he sees," McCarthy said. "I think from concerns that he has about the agreement the majority of the room has the same concerns."
"My wife and I have a son and a daughter. They have a lifetime in front of them. I will not walk away and make the world more unsafe and more dangerous because I wanted someone to say we captured peace for this moment but jeopardized freedom for the future," he said. (Jerusalem Post)
- The Truth about Iran and Israel - Jonathan S. Tobin
Coming to grips with the reality of the anti-Semitism and hate that is at the heart of Iranian foreign policy is a difficult problem for the administration. It has struck an agreement with Iran that, at best, merely postpones the moment when the Islamist regime will get a nuclear bomb while granting its nuclear program international approval. It also gives it a lucrative cash bonus in the form of perhaps $100 billion in unfrozen assets and the relaxation of sanctions that will enrich the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism.
The fact that this deal will give material aid to Iran's terrorist campaign against Israel while leaving open the door to it eventually gaining the ability to wipe out the Jewish state with a nuclear weapon ought to be troubling.
Far from undermining the theocratic regime, the influx of cash and business will strengthen its leaders and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and their support for terror far more than it will enrich its people. That is why the nuclear deal is dangerous and why the push for detente, that is the real point of administration policy, is based on a misunderstanding about the nature of the Islamist state.- Full Article: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/2015/08/12/iran-plotting-against-israel/
Why We Must Fight Against the Iran Deal - Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser (Ha'aretz-Hebrew)
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[*]In the effort to convince the American Congress to approve the agreement with Iran, President Obama has marshaled a series of claims. Some of them are groundless (all the paths to a bomb are blocked, the alternative is war or an Iranian breakout to the bomb, a military action will have only limited effect), some are strange (the Iranian government will moderate in the wake of the deal), and some are intentionally misleading, on the assumption that no one will check the facts (the experts sharply criticize the agreement).
[*]Given the details of the deal, Iran will need only six months to obtain enough material for a bomb during the first ten years, since the centrifuges are being preserved in the facility at Natanz, where they can be reactivated quickly. In addition, there is nothing to prevent Iranian nuclear cooperation with North Korea.
[*]Moreover, the deal does nothing to block Iran from achieving regional hegemony. Nuclear weapons are just a tool to achieve this goal. The agreement paves the way for Iran to achieve its strategic goal without the bomb, as it shows how weak Western opposition is to the transfer of control of the region into the hands of Iran.
[*]In the eyes of the West, conflict with Iran is a disaster that must be prevented by every means, including through surrender (which arises from the entire agreement).
[*]Thus, the struggle against the agreement is necessary. If the effort ends in failure, we will know that we did everything to prevent it, and if in the future we are required to use force to defend ourselves, everyone will know that we tried every other possibility. The struggle will also make it clear to our neighbors that Israel has not lost its willingness to defend itself.
Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser was formerly Director General of the Israel Ministry of Strategic Affairs and head of the Research and Analysis and Production Division of IDF Military Intelligence.
How can Guesser and the other 33% of those who think this Iran deal is a good deal, be so completely wrong about something that only takes a person with a mere glimpse of commons sense to recognize...that Iran will NEVER comply with the agreement.
And yet still Vit I think you should draw your own conclusions. A negotiation is give and take, not we give, they take. Iran benefits from this deal and still will cheat. They got everything and still have a nuclear program. We gave up all the leverage we had in trusting a regime that is bent on sowing chaos, and gave them more power to do so. Have you noticed most of the op-eds in these Iran threads written by Righties attack the deal itself.... while the Left op-eds instead of supporting the deal usually attack personally those opposed to the deal?
Take it from your boy Scotty Vit - The world needed to clamp down on this murderous theocracy, nuke or no nuke, not give it a hand up. But now the pressure is off them, and at the least conventional warfare down the road is more likely. I say this to you in terms of reality, not emotion. If I'm wrong and somehow this leads to a more peaceful world I'll be pleasantly surprised.
Putin to Obama…
How’s this grab your sorry ass?
http://www.breitbart.com/national-s...fense-missile-batteries-to-iran-within-weeks/
Moscow is close to inking an agreement that would expedite the transfer of several of its S-300 missile units to Iran, Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan said Tuesday, Iran’s state-media reported. The air-defense batteries will help extensively to secure Iran’s military and nuclear sites against airstrikes.
Russia has had the S-300s ready for Iran since 2010, but had agreed to not sell the regime the sophisticated technology following international pressure.
But Russia has reneged on its promise, and the new missile shipment will be delivered shortly after the two sides finalize the deal, which is expected to happen no later than next week, Iran’s state-run ISNA news agency reports Dehghan as saying.
How’s this grab your sorry ass?
http://www.breitbart.com/national-s...fense-missile-batteries-to-iran-within-weeks/
Moscow is close to inking an agreement that would expedite the transfer of several of its S-300 missile units to Iran, Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan said Tuesday, Iran’s state-media reported. The air-defense batteries will help extensively to secure Iran’s military and nuclear sites against airstrikes.
Russia has had the S-300s ready for Iran since 2010, but had agreed to not sell the regime the sophisticated technology following international pressure.
But Russia has reneged on its promise, and the new missile shipment will be delivered shortly after the two sides finalize the deal, which is expected to happen no later than next week, Iran’s state-run ISNA news agency reports Dehghan as saying.
If there was any doubt the Iran nuke deal was a bad idea, here’s the proof.
MSNBC host and frequent Obama White House guest Al Sharpton gathered dozens of black pastors over the weekend ahead of the launch of his campaign in support of the Iran nuclear agreement.
“I am calling on ministers in black churches nationwide to go to their pulpits Sunday and have their parishioners call their senators and congressmen to vote yes on the Iran nuclear plan,” Sharpton announced Friday.
MSNBC host and frequent Obama White House guest Al Sharpton gathered dozens of black pastors over the weekend ahead of the launch of his campaign in support of the Iran nuclear agreement.
“I am calling on ministers in black churches nationwide to go to their pulpits Sunday and have their parishioners call their senators and congressmen to vote yes on the Iran nuclear plan,” Sharpton announced Friday.
