[h=2]Iran: Obama Admin Lying About Nuclear Deal for ‘Domestic Consumption’[/h]U.S. downplays Iranian victory to ‘soothe’ fear over deal
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BY: Adam Kredo
July 30, 2015 5:00 am
Senior Iranian officials are accusing the Obama administration of lying about the details of the recent nuclear accord in order to soothe fears among U.S. lawmakers and Americans about the implications of the deal, which will release billions of dollars to the Islamic Republic while temporarily freezing its nuclear program, according to reports from Iran’s state-controlled media.
As Secretary of State John Kerry and other senior Obama administration figures launch a full-court press to convince Congress to approve the deal, Iranian leaders are dismissing the rhetoric as “aimed at domestic consumption.”
Kerry and other top administration officials have been defending the deal on Capitol Hill in recent days, claiming that it will rein in the Islamic Republic’s contested nuclear program and fix its nuclear “breakout” period, the time required for it to obtain the amount of highly enriched uranium necessary for a nuclear weapon, at one year.
Critics have noted that the deal provides Iran with billions of dollars in sanctions relief that could be spent on terrorism and lifts bans on Iran’s export of weapons and construction of ballistic missiles.
When addressing claims this week by the administration that the deal shuts down Tehran’s nuclear infrastructure, Iranian officials scoffed and said that the Obama administration is misleading the public in order to sell the deal.
Hamid Baeidinejad, an official in the Iranian foreign ministry and one of the country’s nuclear negotiators, scoffed on Wednesday at the Obama administration’s comments, saying that they were meant to placate an American domestic audience.
“The remarks by the western officials are ambiguous comments which are merely uttered for domestic use and therefore we should say that there is no ambiguity in this (nuclear) agreement,” the Fars news agency quoted Baeidinejad saying in an interview with state-controlled radio.
Baeidinejad said that the Obama administration is misleading Americans about the deal in order to “calm opponents in the Congress and Zionist lobbies to soothe the internal conditions prevailing over debates on the nuclear agreement in that country,” Fars, which is also run by the Iranian state, reported.
As Congress spends 60 days reviewing the deal, which it may reject, the Iranian parliament is undertaking the same task.
During a meeting on Wednesday with Laurent Fabius, the French foreign minister, President Hassan Rouhani of Iran urged world powers to keep its commitments under the deal.
These includes lifting sanctions on the nearly $100 billion dollar financial empire of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and agreeing to bar American inspectors from all Iranian nuclear sites.
“The Iranian government is standing strong on the path of (implementing) the agreement and we will remain committed to our undertakings as long as the other side remains loyal to its obligations,” Rouhani was quoted as saying during a meeting in Tehran with Fabius, who served as a key negotiator for the French.
Rouhani said the agreement could help Iran become a key player on the international stage.
“This agreement is not against any country and our cooperation and consultations to settle the regional problems, including fight against terrorism, humanitarian aids, and materialization of nations’ demands can prove it,” Rouhani was quoted as saying.
Meanwhile, Fabius was met at the airport by Iranian protestors who accused him of serving as an Israeli spy.
“The protesters chanted slogans such as ‘Aids, A French Gift to Iran’, ‘We Neither Forgive nor Forget’, ‘Fabius, Servant of the US, Spy of Israel’ and ‘No Welcome to Aids Lord,’” according to Fars.
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BY: Adam Kredo
July 30, 2015 5:00 am
Senior Iranian officials are accusing the Obama administration of lying about the details of the recent nuclear accord in order to soothe fears among U.S. lawmakers and Americans about the implications of the deal, which will release billions of dollars to the Islamic Republic while temporarily freezing its nuclear program, according to reports from Iran’s state-controlled media.
As Secretary of State John Kerry and other senior Obama administration figures launch a full-court press to convince Congress to approve the deal, Iranian leaders are dismissing the rhetoric as “aimed at domestic consumption.”
Kerry and other top administration officials have been defending the deal on Capitol Hill in recent days, claiming that it will rein in the Islamic Republic’s contested nuclear program and fix its nuclear “breakout” period, the time required for it to obtain the amount of highly enriched uranium necessary for a nuclear weapon, at one year.
Critics have noted that the deal provides Iran with billions of dollars in sanctions relief that could be spent on terrorism and lifts bans on Iran’s export of weapons and construction of ballistic missiles.
When addressing claims this week by the administration that the deal shuts down Tehran’s nuclear infrastructure, Iranian officials scoffed and said that the Obama administration is misleading the public in order to sell the deal.
Hamid Baeidinejad, an official in the Iranian foreign ministry and one of the country’s nuclear negotiators, scoffed on Wednesday at the Obama administration’s comments, saying that they were meant to placate an American domestic audience.
“The remarks by the western officials are ambiguous comments which are merely uttered for domestic use and therefore we should say that there is no ambiguity in this (nuclear) agreement,” the Fars news agency quoted Baeidinejad saying in an interview with state-controlled radio.
Baeidinejad said that the Obama administration is misleading Americans about the deal in order to “calm opponents in the Congress and Zionist lobbies to soothe the internal conditions prevailing over debates on the nuclear agreement in that country,” Fars, which is also run by the Iranian state, reported.
As Congress spends 60 days reviewing the deal, which it may reject, the Iranian parliament is undertaking the same task.
During a meeting on Wednesday with Laurent Fabius, the French foreign minister, President Hassan Rouhani of Iran urged world powers to keep its commitments under the deal.
These includes lifting sanctions on the nearly $100 billion dollar financial empire of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and agreeing to bar American inspectors from all Iranian nuclear sites.
“The Iranian government is standing strong on the path of (implementing) the agreement and we will remain committed to our undertakings as long as the other side remains loyal to its obligations,” Rouhani was quoted as saying during a meeting in Tehran with Fabius, who served as a key negotiator for the French.
Rouhani said the agreement could help Iran become a key player on the international stage.
“This agreement is not against any country and our cooperation and consultations to settle the regional problems, including fight against terrorism, humanitarian aids, and materialization of nations’ demands can prove it,” Rouhani was quoted as saying.
Meanwhile, Fabius was met at the airport by Iranian protestors who accused him of serving as an Israeli spy.
“The protesters chanted slogans such as ‘Aids, A French Gift to Iran’, ‘We Neither Forgive nor Forget’, ‘Fabius, Servant of the US, Spy of Israel’ and ‘No Welcome to Aids Lord,’” according to Fars.
I will never accept the truth you say. And then you continue your paragraph from that point on with a bunch of lies you are stupid enough to believe. Do the prosecutor and the defendant a favor. If you are ever summoned for jury duty e-mail the court a few of your posts. There are already too many innocents in jail and guilty walking around free. A fucking 6YO can figure out the eventualities of this so-called 'deal'.
Reject Disastrous Iran Deal
Iran advances while America retreats—that is Obama’s actual intent for the Lausanne Agreement
The OBSERVER
Set aside, for now, how the deal with Iran impacts Israel and our presumptive allies in the Middle East, and instead consider how the agreement transforms America and Iran’s role in that transformation. Nation states do not have friends. They have interests. Sometimes those interests coincide with those of other nation states, and we can talk about being friends, having shared values and wanting to make the world a better place. The historical reality is that nation states are generally motivated less by the desire to make the world a better place and more by self-interest.
Imperialism is not just a European trait. The Aztecs were a bloodthirsty imperialist people. The Lakota Sioux were an expansionist people. Shaka Zulu was an imperialist. The Iranians are an expansionist people, and the Middle East is a political vacuum that the Iranians abhor and plan to fill.
So, let’s strip the Iran agreement of mellifluous, meaningless rhetoric. Politics, said Harold Lasswell, the eminent political scientist, is the study of who gets what, when and how.
So what did the Iranians get?
The Iran agreement is about changing the Middle East balance of power and setting an epic precedent for changing America’s role in the world. The Iranians got to keep their nuclear program, their high-speed centrifuges, their enriched uranium, their cloaked, off-the-table military installations, and oxymoronic agreed-to inspections requiring advance notice.
There is no dismantling of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure or “anytime, anywhere” inspections that the administration originally sold to the public as deal breakers when these talks began last November. But equally important, Iran is going to get the release of tens of billions of dollars in frozen assets, information on how to thwart the next Stuxnet-type computer virus, access to advanced Chinese and Russian weaponry, and Europeans crawling all over each other to invest in Iran’s energy and infrastructure. Tehran has already secured over $100 billion in new energy deals.
Why does Iran want all of this? Iran wants to be the regional hegemonic power and put an end to the second-class status of Shiites. It wants to expand Shiite influence and build a Shiite crescent from its eastern border to the Mediterranean Sea. In a culture based on honor and shame, the Shiites have experienced the degradation of being the outliers in Sunni-dominated Islamic cultures.
Iran intends to restore the Shiite position of honor and use its new military might to dominate the Sunni Arab states. Iran performed so spectacularly in the negotiations that if it didn’t really intend to have a nuclear program, it should have created one, just to appear—like North Korea—to negotiate it away in order to end up hitting the jackpot once the ink dries on the agreement. Iran also wants to destroy Israel. This is not empty rhetoric. Israel’s existence on sacred Muslim ground—as the Iranians see it—is blasphemy. Israel’s presence in the region is a violation of Islam’s honor and the P5+1 mind-bogglingly didn’t think it necessary to require Iran to stop funding and advocating terrorism and the destruction of an ally.
But the mullahs are not going to launch a first strike against Israel, contrary to the Armageddon vision that has dominated discussions about the talks. The function of nuclear weapons is deterrence, and even the mullahs know that. The mullahs need nuclear weapons to create the type of balance of terror that dominated the Cold War. Israel could find itself fighting a multiple-front war while having no strategic depth. Iran through its control of Syria will be able to project power on Israel’s border. Years from now, a stronger Iran could launch a conventional war against Israel both from Lebanon through its proxy Hezbollah and with its own troops through Syria.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority, in this scenario, would strike from the West Bank, and Hamas would strike from Gaza. If there is one thing the Shiites and the Sunnis can agree upon, it is death to Israel. Israel could find itself fighting a multiple-front war while having no strategic depth. The scenario is one in which Israel would choose to threaten nuclear retaliation if a strategic line is crossed. But Iran’s nuclear arsenal would cancel the threat, leaving Israel to fight a conventional war she cannot win. All of that is what Iran got out of the deal. So what did America get out of this deal? Let’s begin with the notion that the deal was not about Iran getting nuclear weapons, because the safeguards are far less than those imposed on North Korea, and North Korea developed nuclear weapons.
The nuclear deal was window dressing for Barack Obama’s vision of a more humble and unexceptional America restoring relations with Iran while getting it to provide short-term stability to the region beginning with its potential defeat of the Islamic State. After the expenditure of much blood and treasure, the Obama administration wants to exit the Middle East, downsize the American military, and turn its attention to social welfare programs, the likes of which benefit Mr. Obama’s constituency and which will remake America in the progressive image he supports.
(YECCCHHH -SL)
The president is so desperate to make this happen he is willing to leave behind four U.S. citizens held captive by Iran. He didn’t even think addressing their imprisonment should be part of the negotiations. Still, the administration needs some nation state to preserve stability in the region, at least temporarily. That would be a new and strengthened Iran with Soviet and Chinese weapons.
The Iran agreement will transform both Iran and America. Iran will become the Middle East hegemonic power, and America will retreat to its own shores. Its military, meanwhile, will be reduced. Iran advances while America retreats. That is the purpose of the deal. That is the primary function that can be deduced from the deal’s outcome. The agreement appears to be on the way to the United Nations before it gets through Congress. Mr. Obama is a citizen of the world, and America has to understand it is just another nation, one of many, unexceptional. A flawed nation in need of redemption.
While Congress must send a message and vote against this agreement, their opinion is ultimately irrelevant, for once the UN approves the agreement, the sanctions will end. The Iran agreement is about changing the Middle East balance of power and setting an epic precedent for changing America’s role in the world. The administration knew all along it could not negotiate Iran away from its nuclear ambitions. After all, Iran impoverished its own people to pursue a nuclear weapons program.
The negotiations were not about the bomb. They were about Mr. Obama’s perception that America needed to leave the Middle East but not leave it mired in chaos. Iran will fill the vacuum Mr. Obama is creating. That is the abominable result of the charade in Lausanne.
Iran advances while America retreats—that is Obama’s actual intent for the Lausanne Agreement
The OBSERVER
Set aside, for now, how the deal with Iran impacts Israel and our presumptive allies in the Middle East, and instead consider how the agreement transforms America and Iran’s role in that transformation. Nation states do not have friends. They have interests. Sometimes those interests coincide with those of other nation states, and we can talk about being friends, having shared values and wanting to make the world a better place. The historical reality is that nation states are generally motivated less by the desire to make the world a better place and more by self-interest.
Imperialism is not just a European trait. The Aztecs were a bloodthirsty imperialist people. The Lakota Sioux were an expansionist people. Shaka Zulu was an imperialist. The Iranians are an expansionist people, and the Middle East is a political vacuum that the Iranians abhor and plan to fill.
So, let’s strip the Iran agreement of mellifluous, meaningless rhetoric. Politics, said Harold Lasswell, the eminent political scientist, is the study of who gets what, when and how.
So what did the Iranians get?
The Iran agreement is about changing the Middle East balance of power and setting an epic precedent for changing America’s role in the world. The Iranians got to keep their nuclear program, their high-speed centrifuges, their enriched uranium, their cloaked, off-the-table military installations, and oxymoronic agreed-to inspections requiring advance notice.
There is no dismantling of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure or “anytime, anywhere” inspections that the administration originally sold to the public as deal breakers when these talks began last November. But equally important, Iran is going to get the release of tens of billions of dollars in frozen assets, information on how to thwart the next Stuxnet-type computer virus, access to advanced Chinese and Russian weaponry, and Europeans crawling all over each other to invest in Iran’s energy and infrastructure. Tehran has already secured over $100 billion in new energy deals.
Why does Iran want all of this? Iran wants to be the regional hegemonic power and put an end to the second-class status of Shiites. It wants to expand Shiite influence and build a Shiite crescent from its eastern border to the Mediterranean Sea. In a culture based on honor and shame, the Shiites have experienced the degradation of being the outliers in Sunni-dominated Islamic cultures.
Iran intends to restore the Shiite position of honor and use its new military might to dominate the Sunni Arab states. Iran performed so spectacularly in the negotiations that if it didn’t really intend to have a nuclear program, it should have created one, just to appear—like North Korea—to negotiate it away in order to end up hitting the jackpot once the ink dries on the agreement. Iran also wants to destroy Israel. This is not empty rhetoric. Israel’s existence on sacred Muslim ground—as the Iranians see it—is blasphemy. Israel’s presence in the region is a violation of Islam’s honor and the P5+1 mind-bogglingly didn’t think it necessary to require Iran to stop funding and advocating terrorism and the destruction of an ally.
But the mullahs are not going to launch a first strike against Israel, contrary to the Armageddon vision that has dominated discussions about the talks. The function of nuclear weapons is deterrence, and even the mullahs know that. The mullahs need nuclear weapons to create the type of balance of terror that dominated the Cold War. Israel could find itself fighting a multiple-front war while having no strategic depth. Iran through its control of Syria will be able to project power on Israel’s border. Years from now, a stronger Iran could launch a conventional war against Israel both from Lebanon through its proxy Hezbollah and with its own troops through Syria.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority, in this scenario, would strike from the West Bank, and Hamas would strike from Gaza. If there is one thing the Shiites and the Sunnis can agree upon, it is death to Israel. Israel could find itself fighting a multiple-front war while having no strategic depth. The scenario is one in which Israel would choose to threaten nuclear retaliation if a strategic line is crossed. But Iran’s nuclear arsenal would cancel the threat, leaving Israel to fight a conventional war she cannot win. All of that is what Iran got out of the deal. So what did America get out of this deal? Let’s begin with the notion that the deal was not about Iran getting nuclear weapons, because the safeguards are far less than those imposed on North Korea, and North Korea developed nuclear weapons.
The nuclear deal was window dressing for Barack Obama’s vision of a more humble and unexceptional America restoring relations with Iran while getting it to provide short-term stability to the region beginning with its potential defeat of the Islamic State. After the expenditure of much blood and treasure, the Obama administration wants to exit the Middle East, downsize the American military, and turn its attention to social welfare programs, the likes of which benefit Mr. Obama’s constituency and which will remake America in the progressive image he supports.
(YECCCHHH -SL)
The president is so desperate to make this happen he is willing to leave behind four U.S. citizens held captive by Iran. He didn’t even think addressing their imprisonment should be part of the negotiations. Still, the administration needs some nation state to preserve stability in the region, at least temporarily. That would be a new and strengthened Iran with Soviet and Chinese weapons.
The Iran agreement will transform both Iran and America. Iran will become the Middle East hegemonic power, and America will retreat to its own shores. Its military, meanwhile, will be reduced. Iran advances while America retreats. That is the purpose of the deal. That is the primary function that can be deduced from the deal’s outcome. The agreement appears to be on the way to the United Nations before it gets through Congress. Mr. Obama is a citizen of the world, and America has to understand it is just another nation, one of many, unexceptional. A flawed nation in need of redemption.
While Congress must send a message and vote against this agreement, their opinion is ultimately irrelevant, for once the UN approves the agreement, the sanctions will end. The Iran agreement is about changing the Middle East balance of power and setting an epic precedent for changing America’s role in the world. The administration knew all along it could not negotiate Iran away from its nuclear ambitions. After all, Iran impoverished its own people to pursue a nuclear weapons program.
The negotiations were not about the bomb. They were about Mr. Obama’s perception that America needed to leave the Middle East but not leave it mired in chaos. Iran will fill the vacuum Mr. Obama is creating. That is the abominable result of the charade in Lausanne.
WTF?
Was Kerry actually in the meetings?
Secretary of State John Kerry has been painting an apocalyptic picture of what would happen if Congress killed the Iran nuclear deal. Among other things, he has warned that “our friends in this effort will desert us." But the top national security official from one of those nations involved in the negotiations, France, has a totally different view: He told two senior U.S. lawmakers that he thinks a Congressional no vote might actually be helpful.
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-07-30/top-french-official-contradicts-kerry-on-iran-deal
Was Kerry actually in the meetings?
Secretary of State John Kerry has been painting an apocalyptic picture of what would happen if Congress killed the Iran nuclear deal. Among other things, he has warned that “our friends in this effort will desert us." But the top national security official from one of those nations involved in the negotiations, France, has a totally different view: He told two senior U.S. lawmakers that he thinks a Congressional no vote might actually be helpful.
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-07-30/top-french-official-contradicts-kerry-on-iran-deal
Negotiator Breaks Down Science of Iran Nuclear Deal
Ernest MonizJuly 30, 2015Image: Getty Images
The Forward urged readers in a July 15 editorial to be “productive, reasoned, thoughtful, appropriately skeptical, [and] engaged” in deciding to support or oppose the Iran nuclear agreement concluded in Vienna — and to take seriously concerns that this might increase the threat to Israel.
But it also acknowledged that the status quo is unacceptable, and that readers should examine the agreement on its merits. Let me lay out how this agreement increases the security of the United States, Israel and the world.
This agreement, known as the JCPOA, effectively prevents Iran from producing enough weapons-grade material to build a nuclear weapon. It expands the current two- to three-month breakout time to at least a year — enough time for a strong allied preventive response. It enables unprecedented verification tools to detect noncompliance. And it takes none of our options off the table.
The deal provides an agreement between the great powers and Iran that Iran will never develop or acquire a nuclear weapon, in turn providing a basis for an overwhelming response should it ever attempt to do so. The unity of purpose by the signatories — China, Russia, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the European Union and the United States — is unprecedented.
Most important, we got the science right. I spent 40 years as a nuclear physicist faculty member at MIT and much of this year negotiating with Iran’s nuclear experts. And I drew on exhaustive technical analysis by our leading nuclear experts at the Department of Energy’s national laboratories and nuclear sites.
Preventing the pathways to a weapon
The JCPOA blocks each of Iran’s pathways to the fissile material necessary to make a nuclear weapon:
Drastically reduces uranium stockpile: Iran will reduce its stockpile of low- enriched uranium by 98% — and eliminate its 20%-enriched uranium stockpile. This takes Iran from having the enriched uranium on hand to supply up to a dozen weapons to a one-year breakout time to supply even one weapon.
Cuts back centrifuges: Iran must reduce installed centrifuges by well over two thirds, from 19,000 today to just over 5,000 operating centrifuges. For the next 10 years, only the oldest and least capable centrifuges may operate.
Curbs the plutonium path: Iran will convert the Arak reactor, capable of producing enough weapons-grade plutonium for one-to-two weapons per year, to produce an order of magnitude less plutonium. And cheating will be easily detected. For added protection against a breakout, Iran will send out of the country all spent fuel that could be reprocessed to extract plutonium.
Unprecedented verification and access
An unprecedented level of verification ensures compliance. Trust is not an issue. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will have the necessary access and tools to Iran’s nuclear facilities.
At declared sites, inspectors will have regular access with as little as two hours’ notice. At undeclared sites, inspectors would have access in as few as 24 hours. If Iran disputes access to a site, this agreement provides a crucial new tool to resolve disputes within 24 days and gain access.
Detecting cheating
The IAEA will detect cheating and noncompliance. You can’t just flush nuclear material down the toilet or otherwise hide it. Radioactivity leaves behind detectable traces that we know how to find.
Since 1980, we have trained every IAEA inspector at our Los Alamos National Laboratory. We offer a dozen training courses and ensure that these inspectors have the most advanced monitoring devices and electronic seals, many of which we developed.
Also, if Iran refuses to comply in the future, we have all tools at our disposal — including a return to the most crippling financial and economic sanctions ever imposed on a country over its nuclear activities.
A lasting, transparent agreement
The plan approved in Vienna is indefinite. Some provisions will be in place for 10 years, others for 15, and still others for 20 or 25. But the transparency requirements and Iran’s most fundamental obligation — to forego a nuclear weapons program — are permanent.
To be clear, there are no “side” or “secret” deals. The JCPOA requires that Iran finally cooperate with the IAEA to close the case on Iran’s previous activities relevant to nuclear weapons to the IAEA’s satisfaction. Iran is required to submit certain confidential documents directly to the IAEA.
Of course, the intelligence collection capacities of the U.S. and our friends and allies is the foundation to stop any covert activity. Our Director of National Intelligence has said that, while no agreement could give us 100% certitude, the JCPOA puts us in a far better place when it comes to visibility into Iran’s program. The risk to Iran of having any cheating detected and driving a strong international response are greatly enhanced, thereby deterring covert activities.
Our bottom line
President Obama and I believe that a nuclear-armed Iran is an existential threat to Israel and our other friends and allies in the Middle East. Make no mistake, Iran was a nuclear threshold state before the negotiations. This deal moves them back from that threshold for a considerable period and raises our verification capabilities forever.
This historic agreement presents the best possible opportunity to eliminate the Iranian nuclear weapon threat. And it frees the United States and the international community to address the many other problems that we have with Iran’s regional actions through strong and coordinated security measures.
The United States remains the world’s economic, military and diplomatic leader. We are committed irrevocably to the safety and security of the State of Israel and her people. Iran will never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. This agreement strengthens that commitment.
Ernest Moniz is the U.S. Secretary of Energy.
Read more: http://forward.com/opinion/318187/n...-cheat-proof-iran-nuclear-deal/#ixzz3hPwbq4EQ
Ernest MonizJuly 30, 2015Image: Getty Images
The Forward urged readers in a July 15 editorial to be “productive, reasoned, thoughtful, appropriately skeptical, [and] engaged” in deciding to support or oppose the Iran nuclear agreement concluded in Vienna — and to take seriously concerns that this might increase the threat to Israel.
But it also acknowledged that the status quo is unacceptable, and that readers should examine the agreement on its merits. Let me lay out how this agreement increases the security of the United States, Israel and the world.
This agreement, known as the JCPOA, effectively prevents Iran from producing enough weapons-grade material to build a nuclear weapon. It expands the current two- to three-month breakout time to at least a year — enough time for a strong allied preventive response. It enables unprecedented verification tools to detect noncompliance. And it takes none of our options off the table.
The deal provides an agreement between the great powers and Iran that Iran will never develop or acquire a nuclear weapon, in turn providing a basis for an overwhelming response should it ever attempt to do so. The unity of purpose by the signatories — China, Russia, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the European Union and the United States — is unprecedented.
Most important, we got the science right. I spent 40 years as a nuclear physicist faculty member at MIT and much of this year negotiating with Iran’s nuclear experts. And I drew on exhaustive technical analysis by our leading nuclear experts at the Department of Energy’s national laboratories and nuclear sites.
Preventing the pathways to a weapon
The JCPOA blocks each of Iran’s pathways to the fissile material necessary to make a nuclear weapon:
Drastically reduces uranium stockpile: Iran will reduce its stockpile of low- enriched uranium by 98% — and eliminate its 20%-enriched uranium stockpile. This takes Iran from having the enriched uranium on hand to supply up to a dozen weapons to a one-year breakout time to supply even one weapon.
Cuts back centrifuges: Iran must reduce installed centrifuges by well over two thirds, from 19,000 today to just over 5,000 operating centrifuges. For the next 10 years, only the oldest and least capable centrifuges may operate.
Curbs the plutonium path: Iran will convert the Arak reactor, capable of producing enough weapons-grade plutonium for one-to-two weapons per year, to produce an order of magnitude less plutonium. And cheating will be easily detected. For added protection against a breakout, Iran will send out of the country all spent fuel that could be reprocessed to extract plutonium.
Unprecedented verification and access
An unprecedented level of verification ensures compliance. Trust is not an issue. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will have the necessary access and tools to Iran’s nuclear facilities.
At declared sites, inspectors will have regular access with as little as two hours’ notice. At undeclared sites, inspectors would have access in as few as 24 hours. If Iran disputes access to a site, this agreement provides a crucial new tool to resolve disputes within 24 days and gain access.
Detecting cheating
The IAEA will detect cheating and noncompliance. You can’t just flush nuclear material down the toilet or otherwise hide it. Radioactivity leaves behind detectable traces that we know how to find.
Since 1980, we have trained every IAEA inspector at our Los Alamos National Laboratory. We offer a dozen training courses and ensure that these inspectors have the most advanced monitoring devices and electronic seals, many of which we developed.
Also, if Iran refuses to comply in the future, we have all tools at our disposal — including a return to the most crippling financial and economic sanctions ever imposed on a country over its nuclear activities.
A lasting, transparent agreement
The plan approved in Vienna is indefinite. Some provisions will be in place for 10 years, others for 15, and still others for 20 or 25. But the transparency requirements and Iran’s most fundamental obligation — to forego a nuclear weapons program — are permanent.
To be clear, there are no “side” or “secret” deals. The JCPOA requires that Iran finally cooperate with the IAEA to close the case on Iran’s previous activities relevant to nuclear weapons to the IAEA’s satisfaction. Iran is required to submit certain confidential documents directly to the IAEA.
Of course, the intelligence collection capacities of the U.S. and our friends and allies is the foundation to stop any covert activity. Our Director of National Intelligence has said that, while no agreement could give us 100% certitude, the JCPOA puts us in a far better place when it comes to visibility into Iran’s program. The risk to Iran of having any cheating detected and driving a strong international response are greatly enhanced, thereby deterring covert activities.
Our bottom line
President Obama and I believe that a nuclear-armed Iran is an existential threat to Israel and our other friends and allies in the Middle East. Make no mistake, Iran was a nuclear threshold state before the negotiations. This deal moves them back from that threshold for a considerable period and raises our verification capabilities forever.
This historic agreement presents the best possible opportunity to eliminate the Iranian nuclear weapon threat. And it frees the United States and the international community to address the many other problems that we have with Iran’s regional actions through strong and coordinated security measures.
The United States remains the world’s economic, military and diplomatic leader. We are committed irrevocably to the safety and security of the State of Israel and her people. Iran will never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. This agreement strengthens that commitment.
Ernest Moniz is the U.S. Secretary of Energy.
Read more: http://forward.com/opinion/318187/n...-cheat-proof-iran-nuclear-deal/#ixzz3hPwbq4EQ
It’s Not a Deal
It’s a new, and appalling, partnership.
Jul 27, 2015 By LEE SMITH
It's not hard to figure out why the Obama administration is lashing out at critics of the deal it signed with Iran last week. The White House has been pretending it’s a nuclear deal but knows that it really isn’t. Everyone from the president to the secretary of state and his negotiating team is selling it as a historic achievement. The White House, Obama said, “has achieved something that decades of animosity has not: a comprehensive long-term deal with Iran that will prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.”
But nothing in the agreement will stop Iran from obtaining the bomb, regardless of what the administration argues. The inspection and verification regime stipulated by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action cannot ensure that Iran is abiding by the terms of the agreement.
Iran will have at least 24 days’ advance before International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors can visit the regime’s nuclear facilities. Energy secretary Ernest Moniz says “it’s not so easy to clean up a nuclear site.” As a nuclear scientist, he’s presumably speaking as the administration expert. But this isn’t about specialized knowledge—it’s about common sense and recognizing Iran’s clear pattern of behavior. The Iranians hid entire nuclear facilities, like the uranium enrichment plant at Fordow, for years before anyone discovered them. Twenty-four days is ample time for the regime in Tehran to hide virtually anything—including a bomb. After all, according to White House assessments, without a deal the Iranians would be only two to three months from a nuclear breakout. But without a real inspection regime, there is no impediment to a breakout.
At one time, the White House promised that the agreement would secure anytime/anywhere inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities. Last week, undersecretary of state Wendy Sherman explained that she and her colleagues invoked this term of art only as “popular rhetoric.” That is, they didn’t mean it. They were lying. The administration uses lots of rhetoric because it knows that what it’s selling is not a bad deal—it’s not a deal at all.
The White House wants to do an end-run around Congress by first seeking approval from the U.N. Security Council. The purpose, explained Secretary of State Kerry, is to create a situation where congressional disapproval would make the United States “in noncompliance with this agreement and contrary to all of the other countries in the world.” The administration is taking sides against the representatives of the American people because it’s selling snake oil. It’s not a deal.
Obama attacked a reporter who asked a question about Americans held hostage by the clerical regime. And then the president hinted at dual loyalties when he contended that people should evaluate the agreement “not based on lobbying, but based on what’s in the national interests of the United States of America.” Obama suggests that Americans are incapable of assessing the deal on their own because he knows the document won’t withstand close scrutiny. It’s not a deal.
And it’s not just Benjamin Netanyahu who thinks the agreement is worthless. The reviews are coming in from the rest of the region as well. Saudi Arabia warned Iran against using the billions of dollars unlocked by the end of sanctions “to cause turmoil in the region.” Lebanon’s Druze leader Walid Jumblatt writes that the “deal was signed with the blood of hundreds of thousands of Syrians who were killed to pave the way for this agreement.”
Jumblatt has identified the issue precisely. The signing ceremony in Vienna last week was meant to formalize an arrangement between the Obama White House and Iran regarding the new order in the Middle East—an order to be managed by the clerical regime, in particular its hard men, its extremists, the Revolutionary Guard.
The negotiating process over the nuclear program was a two-year-long sideshow. Kerry played the role of the magician’s pretty assistant whose main job is to distract the audience. The real action was elsewhere—on the ground in the Middle East, from the battleground of the Syrian civil war to the Arab capitals that Iran boasts it controls. Even as the White House claimed there was a firewall separating the nuclear talks from other issues it might have with Tehran, the administration was busy either cooperating with or failing to impede Tehran’s ambitions in Beirut and Baghdad, Damascus and Sana. The talks bracketed the nuclear issue so that the administration could move on to the real issue—a pro-Iran regional realignment.
With Obama intent on minimizing the American footprint in the Middle East, Iran, as he sees it, is the natural partner. The Arabs are incompetent and depend on the United States as their security pillar. The Israelis are okay (even if Bibi is a nuisance), but a tiny nation of 6 million Jews is hardly able to carry the football in a region of hundreds of millions of Muslims.
Iran, however, can get things done. That’s why Obama doesn’t mind Qassem Suleimani, commander of IRGC-Quds Force. At a meeting with Arab officials at Camp David in May, the president told America’s traditional Gulf allies that they should have their own expeditionary unit, like Iran’s, responsible for international terrorism and also managing Iran’s interests in the Syrian civil war, where it is responsible for thousands of deaths.
Obama’s historic achievement will provide Iran with $150 billion, while also lifting sanctions on the IRGC and Suleimani and ending the U.N. arms embargo. In other words, the Obama White House is funding and arming its new regional partner. When Congress votes, the point will be not simply to strike down a bogus nuclear deal, but to reject an alliance with a criminal regime.
Lee Smith is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard.
It’s a new, and appalling, partnership.
Jul 27, 2015 By LEE SMITH
It's not hard to figure out why the Obama administration is lashing out at critics of the deal it signed with Iran last week. The White House has been pretending it’s a nuclear deal but knows that it really isn’t. Everyone from the president to the secretary of state and his negotiating team is selling it as a historic achievement. The White House, Obama said, “has achieved something that decades of animosity has not: a comprehensive long-term deal with Iran that will prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.”
But nothing in the agreement will stop Iran from obtaining the bomb, regardless of what the administration argues. The inspection and verification regime stipulated by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action cannot ensure that Iran is abiding by the terms of the agreement.
Iran will have at least 24 days’ advance before International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors can visit the regime’s nuclear facilities. Energy secretary Ernest Moniz says “it’s not so easy to clean up a nuclear site.” As a nuclear scientist, he’s presumably speaking as the administration expert. But this isn’t about specialized knowledge—it’s about common sense and recognizing Iran’s clear pattern of behavior. The Iranians hid entire nuclear facilities, like the uranium enrichment plant at Fordow, for years before anyone discovered them. Twenty-four days is ample time for the regime in Tehran to hide virtually anything—including a bomb. After all, according to White House assessments, without a deal the Iranians would be only two to three months from a nuclear breakout. But without a real inspection regime, there is no impediment to a breakout.
At one time, the White House promised that the agreement would secure anytime/anywhere inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities. Last week, undersecretary of state Wendy Sherman explained that she and her colleagues invoked this term of art only as “popular rhetoric.” That is, they didn’t mean it. They were lying. The administration uses lots of rhetoric because it knows that what it’s selling is not a bad deal—it’s not a deal at all.
The White House wants to do an end-run around Congress by first seeking approval from the U.N. Security Council. The purpose, explained Secretary of State Kerry, is to create a situation where congressional disapproval would make the United States “in noncompliance with this agreement and contrary to all of the other countries in the world.” The administration is taking sides against the representatives of the American people because it’s selling snake oil. It’s not a deal.
Obama attacked a reporter who asked a question about Americans held hostage by the clerical regime. And then the president hinted at dual loyalties when he contended that people should evaluate the agreement “not based on lobbying, but based on what’s in the national interests of the United States of America.” Obama suggests that Americans are incapable of assessing the deal on their own because he knows the document won’t withstand close scrutiny. It’s not a deal.
And it’s not just Benjamin Netanyahu who thinks the agreement is worthless. The reviews are coming in from the rest of the region as well. Saudi Arabia warned Iran against using the billions of dollars unlocked by the end of sanctions “to cause turmoil in the region.” Lebanon’s Druze leader Walid Jumblatt writes that the “deal was signed with the blood of hundreds of thousands of Syrians who were killed to pave the way for this agreement.”
Jumblatt has identified the issue precisely. The signing ceremony in Vienna last week was meant to formalize an arrangement between the Obama White House and Iran regarding the new order in the Middle East—an order to be managed by the clerical regime, in particular its hard men, its extremists, the Revolutionary Guard.
The negotiating process over the nuclear program was a two-year-long sideshow. Kerry played the role of the magician’s pretty assistant whose main job is to distract the audience. The real action was elsewhere—on the ground in the Middle East, from the battleground of the Syrian civil war to the Arab capitals that Iran boasts it controls. Even as the White House claimed there was a firewall separating the nuclear talks from other issues it might have with Tehran, the administration was busy either cooperating with or failing to impede Tehran’s ambitions in Beirut and Baghdad, Damascus and Sana. The talks bracketed the nuclear issue so that the administration could move on to the real issue—a pro-Iran regional realignment.
With Obama intent on minimizing the American footprint in the Middle East, Iran, as he sees it, is the natural partner. The Arabs are incompetent and depend on the United States as their security pillar. The Israelis are okay (even if Bibi is a nuisance), but a tiny nation of 6 million Jews is hardly able to carry the football in a region of hundreds of millions of Muslims.
Iran, however, can get things done. That’s why Obama doesn’t mind Qassem Suleimani, commander of IRGC-Quds Force. At a meeting with Arab officials at Camp David in May, the president told America’s traditional Gulf allies that they should have their own expeditionary unit, like Iran’s, responsible for international terrorism and also managing Iran’s interests in the Syrian civil war, where it is responsible for thousands of deaths.
Obama’s historic achievement will provide Iran with $150 billion, while also lifting sanctions on the IRGC and Suleimani and ending the U.N. arms embargo. In other words, the Obama White House is funding and arming its new regional partner. When Congress votes, the point will be not simply to strike down a bogus nuclear deal, but to reject an alliance with a criminal regime.
Lee Smith is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard.
DNC Chair Refuses To Back Obama On Iran Deal…Again [VIDEO]
Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz continued to decline offering up her support for President Barack Obama and the Iran nuclear deal Thursday in an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews.
When asked by Matthews if she was “in” to support the deal, Wasserman Schultz continued to waffle, saying that she is taking her time before giving a concrete answer.
“Let me ask you about the deal. You in it or out of the deal now — the nuclear deal? Where are you on that?” Matthews asked.
“I’m taking my time to really know that deal well,” Wasserman Schultz said. “I’m going to go home and talk to my constituents.”
“I’m with you on that,” Matthews responded.
The DNC chair went on to criticize Republicans, saying they were too quick to offer up criticism without reading the deal itself.
Wasserman Schultz’s comments come on the heels of her initial refusal to give her support for the deal on Monday, when she told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
(RELATED: ‘Legitimate Cause For Concern': DNC Chair Refuses To Back Obama’s Iran Deal)
“I think there are — there’s merit to the deal,” Wasserman Schultz said at the time. “There’s a lot of merit to the deal, but there’s also a legitimate cause for concern and I think this is a decision that no member of Congress should make lightly.”
http://dailycaller.com/2015/07/30/dnc-chair-refuses-to-back-obama-on-iran-deal-again-video/
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Translation: It sucks.
Loser!@#0
Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz continued to decline offering up her support for President Barack Obama and the Iran nuclear deal Thursday in an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews.
When asked by Matthews if she was “in” to support the deal, Wasserman Schultz continued to waffle, saying that she is taking her time before giving a concrete answer.
“Let me ask you about the deal. You in it or out of the deal now — the nuclear deal? Where are you on that?” Matthews asked.
“I’m taking my time to really know that deal well,” Wasserman Schultz said. “I’m going to go home and talk to my constituents.”
“I’m with you on that,” Matthews responded.
The DNC chair went on to criticize Republicans, saying they were too quick to offer up criticism without reading the deal itself.
Wasserman Schultz’s comments come on the heels of her initial refusal to give her support for the deal on Monday, when she told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
(RELATED: ‘Legitimate Cause For Concern': DNC Chair Refuses To Back Obama’s Iran Deal)
“I think there are — there’s merit to the deal,” Wasserman Schultz said at the time. “There’s a lot of merit to the deal, but there’s also a legitimate cause for concern and I think this is a decision that no member of Congress should make lightly.”
http://dailycaller.com/2015/07/30/dnc-chair-refuses-to-back-obama-on-iran-deal-again-video/
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Translation: It sucks.
Loser!@#0
Scott the Mullahs asked Obama if they could wager at +105 in your shop. Obama agreed. The UN has already signed on as well as Obama cleared it through them before selling the deal to you. If you refuse this deal the consequences will be catastrophic. Nevermind the "Death To Scott Carter" Rally scheduled in every Iranian Town Square at Noon.
(Scott I'm flexible. I'll take -105 for myself
DNC Chair Refuses To Back Obama On Iran Deal…Again [VIDEO]
Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz continued to decline offering up her support for President Barack Obama and the Iran nuclear deal Thursday in an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews.
When asked by Matthews if she was “in” to support the deal, Wasserman Schultz continued to waffle, saying that she is taking her time before giving a concrete answer.
“Let me ask you about the deal. You in it or out of the deal now — the nuclear deal? Where are you on that?” Matthews asked.
“I’m taking my time to really know that deal well,” Wasserman Schultz said. “I’m going to go home and talk to my constituents.”
“I’m with you on that,” Matthews responded.
The DNC chair went on to criticize Republicans, saying they were too quick to offer up criticism without reading the deal itself.
Wasserman Schultz’s comments come on the heels of her initial refusal to give her support for the deal on Monday, when she told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
(RELATED: ‘Legitimate Cause For Concern': DNC Chair Refuses To Back Obama’s Iran Deal)
“I think there are — there’s merit to the deal,” Wasserman Schultz said at the time. “There’s a lot of merit to the deal, but there’s also a legitimate cause for concern and I think this is a decision that no member of Congress should make lightly.”
http://dailycaller.com/2015/07/30/dnc-chair-refuses-to-back-obama-on-iran-deal-again-video/
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Translation: It sucks.
Loser!@#0
Wow..even the biggest lemming in the world doesn't agree or like this deal...but yet the doofuses on here are all about it.
Hey, did the guides get arraigned yet in the Cecil the Lion case?
John Kerry's daughter got married to an Iranian national. The best man at the wedding was Javad Zarif's son. Mohammad Javad Zarif is Kerry’s Iranian counter-part.
The fact that you are quoting Kerry is embarrassing.
