So the Iran Nuclear Deal....where do you stand?

[The Guesser]

Yes, Guesser, but you forgot one thing.....everyone on this forum is smarter than these scientists.

Yeah DH. They're also smarter than all the negotiators for the P5+1, and All The Israeli security experts who endorse the deal. :think2:

[h=1]Why Israel’s Security Experts Support the Iran Deal—and Iran’s Hard-Liners Don’t[/h][h=6]http://www.truthdig.com/report/item...pport_the_iran_deal_-_and_irans_hardliners_d/[/h]

​

[h=4]Posted on Aug 7[/h][FONT=georgia, times new roman, times, serif]By Joe Conason

As Congressional Republicans seek to undermine the nuclear agreement between Iran and the international powers, they assert that hardline Islamists in the Islamic Republic are delighted with the deal while Israelis concerned over their country’s security are appalled. The same theme is now repeated constantly on Fox News Channel and throughout right-wing media.​

But that message is largely false—and in very important respects, the opposite is true.
In arguing for the agreement at American University last Wednesday, President Obama noted that the most hostile factions in the Tehran regime aren’t celebrating this agreement—as the cover of The New York Post suggested. “In fact, it’s those hardliners who are most comfortable with the status quo,” he said. “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.”
Indeed, while vast throngs of Iranians greeted their government’s negotiators in a joyous welcome, the fanatical reactionaries in the Revolutionary Guard and the paramilitary Basij movement—which have violently repressed democratic currents in Iran—could barely control their outrage. Upon reading the terms, a Basij spokesman said last month, “We quickly realized that what we feared ... had become a reality. If Iran agrees with this, our nuclear industry will be handcuffed for many years to come.”
Hoping and perhaps praying for a veto by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, their supreme leader, the Basijis, the right-wing media in Tehran, and their regime sponsors pointed to “red lines” that the agreement allegedly crossed.
“We will never accept it,” said Mohammed Ali Jafari, a high-ranking Revolutionary Guard commander.
Such shrill expressions of frustration should encourage everyone who understands the agreement’s real value. Iran’s “Death to America, Death to Israel” cohort hates this deal—not only because of its highly restrictive provisions, but because over the long term, it strengthens their democratic opponents and threatens their corrupt control of Iranian society.
In Israel, meanwhile, the alarmist criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—a sage whose confident predictions about Iran, Iraq, and almost everything else are reliably, totally wrong—has obscured support from actual military and intelligence leaders. Like experts in this country and around the world, the best-informed Israelis understand the deal’s imperfections very well—and support it nevertheless.
“There are no ideal agreements,” declared Ami Ayalon, a military veteran who headed the Israeli Navy and later oversaw the Jewish state’s security service, the Shin Bet. But as Ayalon explained to J.J. Goldberg of the Forward, this agreement is “the best possible alternative from Israel’s point of view, given the other available alternatives”—including the most likely alternative which is, as Obama explained, another extremely dangerous Mideast war.
Efraim Halevy, who formerly ran the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence service, and later headed its National Security Council, concurs with Ayalon (and Obama). Writing in Yedioth Aharonoth, the national daily published in Tel Aviv, Halevy points out a profound contradiction in Netanyahu’s blustering complaints. Having warned that an Iranian nuclear weapon would pose a unique existential threat to Israel, how can Bibi logically reject the agreement that forestalls any bomb development for at least 15 years and increases the “breakout time” from one month to a year—even if Iran ultimately violates its commitments?
Such a deal is far preferable to no deal, the ex-Mossad chief insists, although it won’t necessarily dissuade Tehran from making trouble elsewhere. Halevy also emphasizes that no mythical “better” deal would ever win support from Russia and China, Iran’s main weapons suppliers, whose leaders have endorsed this agreement.
In short, both of these top former officials believe the agreement with Iran will enhance their nation’s security—and contrary to what Fox News Channel’s sages might claim, they represent mainstream opinion in Israel’s military and intelligence circles.
So perhaps we can safely discount the partisan demagogues and feckless opportunists who claim to be protecting the Jewish state from Barack Obama. And when someone like Mike Huckabee—who memorably escaped military service because of his “flat feet”—denounces the president for “marching Israelis to the oven door,” let’s remember the sane and serious response of Israel’s most experienced defenders.
[/FONT]

 

[ScottL]

You post from Radical extremist sites like Caroline Glick, and yet you admonish someone who disagrees with your views as posting from radical extreme sites?? When you try and portray someone like Glick as the centrist voice of reason, you lose the debate.

So you participate in the debate and decide the score eh? You can't invalidate one thing Caroline Glick has ever written. She writes for Israel's most read and most centrist paper, the Jerusalem Post. Her column is called 'Column One' for a reason. You come after her like a Gazan on crack! If you want to call her an extremist, instead of what she is, a brilliant patriot who loves her country than disect her words before you disect her. "Extremist sites like Caroline Glick?" You want extremist? Try your buddy "Flotilla" Glenn Greenwald! Try Mother Jones.

 

[ScottL]

"Why Israel’s Security Experts Support the Iran Deal—and Iran’s Hard-Liners Don’t
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/..._hardliners_d/
Posted on Aug 7
By Joe Conason"

Writes for salon.com, truthdig and Puffington Host. I'm sure he's very objective. Like loving this Shit deal before he even knew what was in it. Is he on the next ship to, "end the blockade in Gaza" too? You find every commentator on the American and European far left, and attack Israel and Israel columnists with them.

 

[The Guesser]

So you participate in the debate and decide the score eh? You can't invalidate one thing Caroline Glick has ever written. She writes for Israel's most read and most centrist paper, the Jerusalem Post. Her column is called 'Column One' for a reason. You come after her like a Gazan on crack! If you want to call her an extremist, instead of what she is, a brilliant patriot who loves her country than disect her words before you disect her. "Extremist sites like Caroline Glick?" You want extremist? Try your buddy "Flotilla" Glenn Greenwald! Try Mother Jones.

Here's the difference. I recognize Mother Jones as an extreme left Publication. I don't call Greenwald a Centrist. I do think he's a Patriot. You think Glick Is a Centrist that is in tune with the main stream POV. She's not, she's a right Wing Extremist.
As for dissecting her words or invalidating one word she's written, I'll invalidate more than one, "Perhaps Obama is acting out of anti-Semitism, perhaps he acts out of sympathy for Islamic fascism.". She has the nerve to call The POTUS an Anti Semite, and/or sympathetic to Islamic Fascism. Of course, in your mind, that's not extremist. But in the real world, it's extremist and disgusting.

 

[The Guesser]

"Why Israel’s Security Experts Support the Iran Deal—and Iran’s Hard-Liners Don’t
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/..._hardliners_d/
Posted on Aug 7
By Joe Conason"

Writes for salon.com, truthdig and Puffington Host. I'm sure he's very objective. Like loving this Shit deal before he even knew what was in it. Is he on the next ship to, "end the blockade in Gaza" too? You find every commentator on the American and European far left, and attack Israel and Israel columnists with them.

So Conason isn't "objective", but Caroline Glick is? Gotcha. YOU Get to decide who is objective. How about all the hacks who hated the deal before it was known what was in it?

 

[ScottL]

So Conason isn't "objective", but Caroline Glick is? Gotcha. YOU Get to decide who is objective. How about all the hacks who hated the deal before it was known what was in it?

I'm not the person who starts by attacking the source. And I certainly don't blame Caroline Glick, an Israeli who believes Obama does nothing but put her country in peril, for her reaction. I didn't say the woman was perfect. Isaid she is more qualified to speak on Israel's (and probably America's for that matter) security than you, I, and certainly some dude from Salon who picks and chooses his experts from those who agree with him.

 

[ScottL]

The Iran deal is the new Obamacare: Rich Lowry

Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said a while ago that an Iran deal would be the health-care bill of President Barack Obama's second term, and he was right.

Like Obamacare, the Iran deal represents an ideological fixation of the president's; it is unpopular; and it will get through Congress -- or to be more exact, avoid disapproval by Congress -- by sheer partisan force.

When Obama mounted a defense of the deal in a speech at American University, it was aimed less at public persuasion -- never a strength of his during the Obamacare debate -- than base mobilization as he seeks to hold the Democrats he will need to sustain a veto of a resolution of disapproval.

How else to explain a speech that chastised opponents for their "strident" rhetoric at the same time it contended that Iranian hard-liners "are making common cause with the Republican caucus," a juvenile little jab worthy of a Daily Kos diarist?

For years, we've heard Obama say that all options are on the table in forcing the Iranians to "end their nuclear program." But he believed in having all options on the table about as much as he opposed gay marriage. Saying that he didn't rule out military options was all about buying time until he could turn around and say, in effect, that a bad deal is better than all military options.

Not that anyone, especially the Iranians, ever took him very seriously. This deal is the result of coercive diplomacy absent coercion. In essence, it allows Iran to become a threshold nuclear power (preserving much of its nuclear infrastructure and continuing to enrich) in exchange for us not having to do anything to try to stop Iran from becoming a threshold nuclear power.

The president's rebuttals of the critics of the agreement are wan and unpersuasive.

On inspections: "This access can be with as little as 24 hours' notice." Underline the word "can" in that sentence. As the president later acknowledged, if Iran wants to block inspectors from a suspicious site, the question goes to a dispute-resolution process that takes up to 24 days.

On the deal expiring: "It is true that some of the limitations regarding Iran's peaceful program last only 15 years." This is truly insipid. The whole point of the deal is to limit Iran's "peaceful program" because no one believes that it is peaceful.

On sanctions relief: "An argument against sanctions relief is effectively an argument against any diplomatic resolution of this issue." No. It's an argument against sanctions relief that provides a huge windfall to the regime in exchange for an inadequate deal.

The president concedes that perhaps some of the tens of billions of dollars will go to military activities, but says Iran has "engaged in these activities for decades" -- which isn't much of a case for giving it the resources to fund them more lavishly.

The crux of the president's case is that there is no alternative to his path except war. But the sanctions regime was biting. It could have been preserved and even tightened, and coupled with a credible threat of force, could have produced a much better agreement.

Instead, Obama has been palpably desperate for a deal, and desperate to bypass Congress. There will be a congressional vote, but on terms exactly reversed from what it takes to approve a treaty (it will take a two-thirds supermajority to block rather than approve). Even so, Obama went to the United Nations Security Council before Congress, and the international-sanctions regime has already effectively been unraveled.

This means that like Obamacare, the Iran deal, too, will carry a taint of illegitimacy. It, too, will become something that Republicans pledge to reverse. It, too, will have its ultimate standing decided by the 2016 election.

It, too, in sum, is supposed to be a great credit to the president's legacy, when it is really a disgrace.

 

[The Guesser]

I'm not the person who starts by attacking the source. And I certainly don't blame Caroline Glick, an Israeli who believes Obama does nothing but put her country in peril, for her reaction. I didn't say the woman was perfect. Isaid she is more qualified to speak on Israel's (and probably America's for that matter) security than you, I, and certainly some dude from Salon who picks and chooses his experts from those who agree with him.

You're not? It wasn't Scott L who wrote this in response to a Column I posted? At least when I attack Caroline Glick, I don't deny that I attacked Caroline Glick.

"Writes for salon.com, truthdig and Puffington Host. I'm sure he's very objective. Like loving this Shit deal before he even knew what was in it. Is he on the next ship to, "end the blockade in Gaza" too? You find every commentator on the American and European far left, and attack Israel and Israel columnists with them."

 

[ScottL]

You missed my point. Reword the bold to read, "I'm not the first poster to attack a writer instead of his conclusions. But since you're already doing it I'm responding in kind."

 

[The Guesser]

Israel Security Establishment Breaks With Bibi on Iran Deal

J.J. GoldbergJuly 23, 2015Image: Getty Images


There’s a deep crack emerging in the veneer of wall-to-wall support offered by Israel’s political leadership to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his war against the Iran nuclear agreement.
The crack has a name you might recognize: the Israeli security establishment. You know — the folks whose job it is to identify and address threats to Israel’s safety. A small but growing group of high-power ex-commanders has been speaking out in media interviews and op-ed essays in the past few days, saying that Netanyahu has got the Iran issue wrong.
It’s not yet what you’d call an avalanche of dissent. But against the pro-Netanyahu unanimity among the politicians, coalition and opposition alike, the skepticism emerging from the security community stands out in striking relief. As unanimous as the politicians are in backing the prime minister, the generals and spymasters are nearly as unanimous in questioning him. Generals publicly backing Netanyahu can be counted on — well — one finger.
Many of the security insiders say the deal signed in Vienna on July 14 isn’t as bad as Netanyahu claims. Some call it good for Israel. Others say it’s bad, but it’s a done deal and Israel should make the best of it. Either way, they agree that Israel should work with the Obama administration to plot implementation, rather than mobilize Congress against the White House.
All agree that undermining Israel’s alliance with America is a far greater existential threat than anything Iran does.
READ: Why This Man Backs Iran Deal Despite Bibi’s Bluster

Who are these critics? They include a former chief of military intelligence, Amos Yadlin , who now heads Israel’s main defense think tank; a former chief of arms technology,Yitzhak Ben-Yisrael , who now chairs both The Israel Space Agency and the science ministry’s research and development council; a former chief of military operations,Israel Ziv ; a near-legendary architect of Israeli military intelligence, Dov Tamari ; a former director of the Shin Bet domestic security service, Ami Ayalon , and a former director of the Mossad intelligence agency, Efraim Halevy . And there are others.

Image: getty images

The list would be longer if we included security figures who spoke in favor of the Lausanne framework agreement in April, which was the basis for this deal, but haven’t addressed the new agreement. And we’re not including anyone who retired with a rank below brigadier general. We’re just discussing the architects of Israeli defense.
The roster should also include a onetime chief of military intelligence, Israel Defense Forces chief of staff and prime minister named Ehud Barak. He was Netanyahu’s defense minister from 2009 to 2013 and helped develop his Iran strategy. In a television interview the day the agreement was signed, Barak said he wouldn’t criticize his old boss or tell him what to do. But he did just that.
Barak called the nuclear deal a “bad deal” that legitimizes Iran as a nuclear threshold state. He predicted that Iran would have a nuclear weapon within a decade. But, he said, Israel “can live with whatever happens there. We are the strongest state in the Middle East, militarily, strategically, economically — and diplomatically, if we’re not foolish.”
Again contradicting Netanyahu, Barak said: “The most important thing we need to do right now is restore working relations with the White House. That’s the only place where we can formulate what constitutes a violation, what’s a smoking gun and how to respond.”
In part, that means Israel “cannot position itself as a political player in the American Congress. Individuals can certainly speak to Americans they know personally and explain to them why this is a bad agreement from Israel’s viewpoint. That’s legitimate. But Israel as a state operating within the internal framework of another friendly state — that’s problematic.”
Israel, Barak said, is “not in an apocalyptic situation. We are not in Europe 1938” — an implied jab at Netanyahu’s frequent invocation of the Allies’ appeasement of Hitler at Munich — “and not Palestine 1947,” when newborn Israel faced five Arab armies alone.
That’s the generals’ central theme: Don’t panic. “We need to be calm,” said Yadlin, the former military intelligence chief, in a Ynet online interview .
“The agreement isn’t good, but Israel can deal with it.” Instead of “blowing off steam,” he said, Israel should be talking with the United States to prepare responses to violations.
By contrast, Ben-Yisrael, who has twice won the Israel Prize for contributions to Israel’s weapons technology, told Walla! News that the Vienna agreement is “not bad at all, perhaps even good for Israel.” True, Iran still calls for Israel’s destruction. But, he said, from the nuclear perspective — which is what the negotiations were about — “it prevents a nuclear bomb for 15 years, which is not bad at all.”
Halevy, the former Mossad director, elaborated on Ben-Yisrael’s point in a scathingYnet op-ed . From the start, Israel “maintained that the Iranian threat is a unique, existential threat.” It wanted the international community to address the threat, and it did. “That was the only goal of the biting sanctions against Iran,” he wrote.
Now, he stated, the government tries “to change the rules of the game and include additional demands from Iran in the agreement, like recognizing Israel and halting support for terror.” By threatening to block an agreement that addresses Israel’s “existential-cardinal” goal because it doesn’t address other, nonexistential issues, Halevy wrote, Netanyahu raises the suspicion that he doesn’t want a deal at all.
It’s impossible to say for certain whether the dozen or so ex-generals and spymasters who have spoken out are representative of the broader security community. But there are hints. Netanyahu has replaced top personnel repeatedly, but each new cohort takes the same stance: opposing precipitate action; denying that Iran represents an existential threat, insisting that Iran’s leadership is rational and responds to negotiation and deterrence.
Last January, the Mossad’s director, Tamir Pardo, told a group of senators that imposing new sanctions on Iran, something Netanyahu favored, would undermine the nuclear talks. Now, recent news reports say, Netanyahu has ordered all personnel to avoid discussing Iran, presumably to silence Pardo and his colleagues. It’s also reported that the military set up a task force to prepare a list of requests from Washington to help Israel cope with the new Iranian reality, but that Netanyahu had forbidden any such discussion, arguing that it effectively condoned the nuclear deal.
Israel’s military has a long history of approaching big issues pragmatically, avoiding ideology and big theories. Over the past six years, this has caused steadily mounting tension between the security services and Netanyahu, who is as ideological a prime minister as Israel has ever seen.
On the Palestinian issue, the military often seems to turn up on one side of Israel’s ideological divide, though not for ideological reasons. On Iran there hasn’t been a side with which the military can line up. Sources close to the Knesset say lawmakers with doubts about current policy are silent, fearing attacks on their patriotism. The uniformed personnel have been shut down. And so, as Netanyahu approaches a fateful showdown in Washington, the old veterans are out there on their own.






Readmore: http://forward.com/opinion/312461/c...k-with-politicians-on-iran-dea/#ixzz3iILHDfvH

 

[MantisToboggan]

Yes, Guesser, but you forgot one thing.....everyone on this forum is smarter than these scientists.

Let's be honest, this post is exactly the kind of shit you were bitching about 20 posts ago.

No one said they were smarter than these 29 scientists. It's great that these guys are in favor of this agreement, but that doesn't mean there is an absence of intelligent people that are against this agreement. Disagreeing with these guys also doesn't mean I think I'm smarter than they are. Happy to read and consider their thoughts.

 

[ScottL]

Let's be honest, this post is exactly the kind of shit you were bitching about 20 posts ago.

No one said they were smarter than these 29 scientists. It's great that these guys are in favor of this agreement, but that doesn't mean there is an absence of intelligent people that are against this agreement. Disagreeing with these guys also doesn't mean I think I'm smarter than they are. Happy to read and consider their thoughts.

I can't stomach intellectual laziness. I'm not calling DH out on it. I'm calling everyone out on it, myself included. I try to at least recognize it though. And what is it, descriptively? "I've already made up my mind. Now I'm going to find some authors and experts who agree with me and post them." It's sad, but if you give me a list of 100 people who have written about the Israeli-Arab conflict the last 20 years, I will tell you their 'opinion' of the Iran Nuke Deal without knowing it upfront. And get 99 of them correct!

This type of intellectual laziness is going to get Hillary elected president. Ace just posted in another thread that women's approval of Hillary dropped from 44 to 34%. And still, one day soon a collective liberal voice will sigh, "I don't like Hillary. But she's the devil I know. And who else is there?" So welcome back to the White House, Clinton 45. Intellectual laziness.

In this Iran deal I think it's best to recognize a few things. You may disagree but....

-When America leads the world is better off for it. Kerry and Obama are not leaders. Kerry ran for president by putting his finger in the wind and deciding to be for it before he was against it. Both he and Obama stressed how "no deal is better than a bad deal" when they had already decided that any deal is better than no deal. Why the lies?

-Iran is a weakened nation. They were feeling the sanctions. Instead of punishing them for their support of murder around the globe we gave them a hand and pulled them up. We gave them the, "welcome to the community of (nuclear powered) nations" stamp of approval. The reality is they don't want to be a part of a community of nations. They want to be a ruler and blackmailer of nations. And we gave them this power.

-I have a lot more thoughts on this. Time to return my mind to The Diamond now though, and soon The Field. It's that time of the year! Bottom line is yeah, you make peace with your enemies. When they are interested in peace! You don't make a deal that allows your enemy to make better war down the road. Be it with nukes, or with the stronger weapons they will buy and the chaos they will sow with the 150 billion they get.

 

[russ1945]

The joke is that now after the fact some Dem's are speaking out against the Iran deal. So they are more or less on record and are covered if it never comes up for voting. The bottom line is that is what is wrong in DC now, nobody wants to go on record with a vote unless they absolutely have to. Why haven't the Republicans been piling bills on Obama's desk even if they know he will veto them. At least all the Dem's would be on record. DC is a disaster and both parties are at fault. Way too many career politicians and it all starts with out of control lobbying.

 

[Acebb]

guesser gets all of it's talking points from Crooks & Liars. There is some dipshit lady that writes for that site tweeting out the same things guesser is pasting here.

Note: she is pretty much an unabashed Jew hater like duckhunter.

 

[MantisToboggan]

I can't stomach intellectual laziness. I'm not calling DH out on it. I'm calling everyone out on it, myself included. I try to at least recognize it though. And what is it, descriptively? "I've already made up my mind. Now I'm going to find some authors and experts who agree with me and post them." It's sad, but if you give me a list of 100 people who have written about the Israeli-Arab conflict the last 20 years, I will tell you their 'opinion' of the Iran Nuke Deal without knowing it upfront. And get 99 of them correct!

This type of intellectual laziness is going to get Hillary elected president. Ace just posted in another thread that women's approval of Hillary dropped from 44 to 34%. And still, one day soon a collective liberal voice will sigh, "I don't like Hillary. But she's the devil I know. And who else is there?" So welcome back to the White House, Clinton 45. Intellectual laziness.

In this Iran deal I think it's best to recognize a few things. You may disagree but....

-When America leads the world is better off for it. Kerry and Obama are not leaders. Kerry ran for president by putting his finger in the wind and deciding to be for it before he was against it. Both he and Obama stressed how "no deal is better than a bad deal" when they had already decided that any deal is better than no deal. Why the lies?

-Iran is a weakened nation. They were feeling the sanctions. Instead of punishing them for their support of murder around the globe we gave them a hand and pulled them up. We gave them the, "welcome to the community of (nuclear powered) nations" stamp of approval. The reality is they don't want to be a part of a community of nations. They want to be a ruler and blackmailer of nations. And we gave them this power.

-I have a lot more thoughts on this. Time to return my mind to The Diamond now though, and soon The Field. It's that time of the year! Bottom line is yeah, you make peace with your enemies. When they are interested in peace! You don't make a deal that allows your enemy to make better war down the road. Be it with nukes, or with the stronger weapons they will buy and the chaos they will sow with the 150 billion they get.

This is my thought as well. China will also come out of this with more influence in the ME, perhaps even to the point that their influence will surpass US influence.

 

[Dave007inVegas]

This is my thought as well. China will also come out of this with more influence in the ME, perhaps even to the point that their influence will surpass US influence.

What influence? I think that ship has temporally sailed.

 

[russ1945]

Russian warships dock in Iran...

 

[MantisToboggan]

What influence? I think that ship has temporally sailed.

You think this is bad? Wait until Iran becomes economically dependent on China.

 

[britam25]

The deal with Iran is a catastrophe. And a stabbing in the back of one of our best allies. You only have to PAY ATTENTION to the rhetoric that Iran uses when talking of America.

 

[Acebb]

I bet spammy the rat believed every word of this

Can someone let duckhunter know a bunch of scientists thought NK wouldn't get the bomb then either?