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Iran Tag

Posted by Amy Miller on August 19, 2015 13 Comments
Just when you thought you couldn't be more ashamed of the past six years of American foreign policy...here comes the onslaught. The AP has gotten its hands on draft documents suggesting that, as part of the controversial Iran nuclear agreement, Tehran will be able to use its own inspectors---as opposed to a neutral IAEA-based team---to keep tabs on the Parchin nuclear site in Iran. This is a separate, side agreement that the Obama Administration endorsed as part of the whole package currently awaiting judgment in Congress. The AP explains what is contained in the draft:
The document seen by the AP is a draft that one official familiar with its contents said doesn't differ substantially from the final version. He demanded anonymity because he isn't authorized to discuss the issue. It is labeled "separate arrangement II," indicating there is another confidential agreement between Iran and the IAEA governing the agency's probe of the nuclear weapons allegations. The document suggests that instead of carrying out their own probe, IAEA staff will be reduced to monitoring Iranian personnel as these inspect the Parchin site.

Posted by David Gerstman on August 19, 2015 25 Comments
By now, Sen. Jeff Flake's (R - Ariz.) announcement that he will oppose the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) has been overshadowed by Sen. Robert Menendez' (D - N.J.) Tuesday announcement of his opposition. Still, I'd like to revisit Flake's announcement because he was viewed by the administration, in the words of one report, as a "gettable" Republican. With Flake's announcement it now appears that President Barack Obama will not be able to claim bipartisan support for the JCPOA. I don't know how "gettable," Flake was. To be sure, at the July 23 Senate Foreign Relations hearing Flake was much less adversarial than most other Republicans on the committee, and that played a role in maintaining the impression that he perhaps looked favorably upon the deal. He also was less adversarial than Menendez. However, he asked Kerry some very solid questions and Kerry's responses were awful. How awful? Early in his question and answer session Flake asked Kerry about language in the JCPOA that allowed Iran to opt out if sanctions were re-imposed.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 18, 2015 29 Comments
New Jersey Democratic Senator Bob Menendez announced his opposition to the Iran nuclear deal today in a speech at Seton Hall University. Menendez laid out his reasons why the deal not only was bad, but also worse than the alternatative. Hope, he said, is not a strategy. “Whether or not the supporters of the agreement admit it, this deal is based on ‘hope’– hope that when the nuclear sunset clause expires Iran will have succumbed to the benefits of commerce and global integration. Hope that the hardliners will have lost their power and the revolution will end its hegemonic goals. And hope that the regime will allow the Iranian people to decide their fate. “Hope is part of human nature, but unfortunately it is not a national security strategy.... “I know that, in many respects, it would be far easier to support this deal, as it would have been to vote for the war in Iraq at the time. But I didn’t choose the easier path then, and I’m not going to now. I know that the editorial pages that support the agreement would be far kinder, if I voted yes, but they largely also supported the agreement that brought us a nuclear North Korea. (Full text here)(full video at bottom of post) Menendez addressed Obama's claim that people opposing the Iran deal are the same people who called for the invasion of Iraq:

Posted by David Gerstman on August 12, 2015 12 Comments
Following the nuclear negotiations with Iran, I am constantly amazed at the revelations that get reported (though often not widely enough) that document the administration's systematic capitulation to every single Iranian demand. Though it's probably not the most shocking news I've heard, the news broken by MEMRI, that already in 2011 President Barack Obama had conceded that Iran had the right to enrich uranium, is probably near the top. Before any serious negotiations were underway the administration gave away its most significant bargaining chip. The Free Beacon summarized MEMRI's report:
President Barack Obama approved of Iran’s right to operate a nuclear program in 2011 during secret meetings with Iranian officials, according to new disclosures by Iran’s Supreme Leader. ... Secretary of State John Kerry sent a letter to Iran stating that the United States “recognizes Iran’s rights regarding” nuclear enrichment, according to another senior Iranian official, Hossein Sheikh Al-Islam. “We came to the [secret] negotiations [with the United States] after Kerry wrote a letter and sent it to us via [mediator Omani Sultan Qaboos], stating that America officially recognizes Iran’s rights regarding the [nuclear fuel] enrichment cycle,” Al-Islam said in a recent interview with Iran’s Tasnim news agency, according to MEMRI.
Keep in mind that Kerry, at this point was a senator, not the Secretary of State and that it was the vitriolic Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who was president of Iran, before the "moderate" Hassan Rouhani was anything more than a gleam in the eyes of our top Iran experts.

Posted by Mike LaChance on August 12, 2015 8 Comments
The man in the video below is Sergeant Robert Bartlett who was wounded in Iraq in 2005. Bartlett is part of a group called Veterans Against the Deal which obviously opposes the Iran Nuclear Deal. The video makes a very strong statement because you're hearing from someone who has experienced the brutality of war in the Middle East and was wounded, as he says, by an Iranian bomb. This isn't a political party or a defecting senator Obama or his supporters can demonize, this is an American veteran. Allahpundit of Hot Air points to an article in the Military Times which strengthens the argument of this group:
Iran linked to deaths of 500 U.S. troops in Iraq, Afghanistan At least 500 U.S. military deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan were directly linked to Iran and its support for anti-American militants — a newly disclosed statistic that offers grim context for the Obama administration's diplomatic deal with the Iranian regime aimed at curtailing the rogue nation's nuclear ambitions. That figure underscores the controversy surrounding Washington's deal with Tehran, a long-sought goal for the president — but one that is fiercely opposed by many Republicans in Congress and other critics.

Posted by Mirabelle Ward on August 11, 2015 19 Comments
If the overheated rhetoric and denunciations of the opponents of the disastrous Iranian nuclear deal weren’t over the top before Chuck Schumer announced his position, they certainly have reached that point now. William Jacobson and Kemberlee Kaye have catalogued some of the more appalling responses here and here. Two of the worst accusations that are being made against Senator Schumer, as well as other members of Congress that have openly opposed the deal, are first, that they are acting against American interests, and second, that they do so at the behest of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and AIPAC. Those who call Schumer “Netanyahu’s marionette” appear oblivious to the Senator’s deliberative, thoughtful, and well-reasoned statement, which rebuts the President’s arguments point by point. They similarly ignore the fact that, as the New York Times reports, Schumer met with the President, with Wendy Sherman and John Kerry, and in addition to those meetings, had “three hourlong meetings with members of the negotiating team during which he received answers to 14 pages’ worth of questions on the agreement.” The charge that Senator Schumer did anything other than exercise his own independent judgment is scurrilous. Clearly, what is really unacceptable to his attackers is the fact that Schumer failed to blindly follow the party line. All of which has left me wondering, when did it become anti-American to exercise independent judgment?

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on August 10, 2015 15 Comments
Monday, Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer reiterated his opposition to the Obama administration's nuclear deal. "First let me say this, this was one of the most difficult decisions that I had to make. I studied long and hard, read the agreement a whole bunch of times, had many, many, many meetings and interviews people on both sides including three classified briefings where can ask questions that are not in the confines of the document but very relevant to making a decision." "I have found when it's such a difficult decision as this has been, you gotta study it carefully, come up with a conclusion, not let pressure, party, or politics influence your decision, and then do the right thing. Well that's what I've done."

Posted by David Gerstman on August 09, 2015 15 Comments
The approach of the President Barack Obama and his administration to the nuclear deal with Iran has been one of knocking down straw men and vilifying opponents of the deal as beholden to lobbyists, following mindless partisanship, and working against America's national security. These are "dog whistle" remarks, which have brought out a rather nasty response Sen. Chuck Schumer's (D - N.Y.) decision last week to oppose the deal. The administration's nastiness even earned condemnation from Tablet Magazine:
This use of anti-Jewish incitement as a political tool is a sickening new development in American political discourse, and we have heard too much of it lately—some coming, ominously, from our own White House and its representatives. Let’s not mince words: Murmuring about “money” and “lobbying” and “foreign interests” who seek to drag America into war is a direct attempt to play the dual-loyalty card. It’s the kind of dark, nasty stuff we might expect to hear at a white power rally, not from the President of the United States—and it’s gotten so blatant that even many of us who are generally sympathetic to the administration, and even this deal, have been shaken by it.
But I think it's a mistake to think that Obama's strategy is counterproductive because it won't build support for the deal.

Posted by Jared Samilow on August 09, 2015 21 Comments
With each passing day, it looks more certain that Obama will get his way on Iran. The Republicans in Congress will not persuade enough of their blue colleagues to defy Obama. Not that this comes as a surprise. The President has run circles around Republicans for as long as anyone can remember. Why should now be any different? But even Obama’s luck can run out eventually. A report suggests that a senior French diplomat is having second thoughts; there are whispers that other European leaders may be seeing the light. We can wistfully ponder the possibilities Congress might open up if, by some miracle, that light reaches its Democratic precincts. As it were, the sensible alternative to no deal is actually not war, but no deal. Full stop. John Kerry may hold forth that no deal spells war. But what he really means is that only those who want war could possibly oppose him. It’s a primitive scare-tactic.

Posted by Amy Miller on August 05, 2015 29 Comments
"I say this not to be provocative, but to state a fact." That was the theme of President Obama's speech today at American University, in which he offered a spirited, low-blown defense of the Iran nuke deal. The address, however, was indeed provocative, and more often than not devoid of the very facts that have turned what the Administration desperately wanted to be a legacy moment into a full-blown battle on Capitol Hill. It was evident that Obama fully recognizes that the battle has taken a turn. At one point in his speech, he compared his Republican detractors in Congress with hardliners who chant "Death to America":
"Just because Iranian hard-liners chant 'death to America' does not mean that that's what all Iranians believe," Obama said to strong applause from the audience. "In fact, it's those hard-liners who are most comfortable with the status quo," Obama said Wednesday afternoon. "It's those hard-liners chanting "death to America" who have been most opposed to the deal." "They're making common cause with the Republican caucus," Obama said to laughter and wild applause.
Watch:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 05, 2015 30 Comments
There John Kerry goes again. Jeffrey Goldberg, the go-to person when the Obama administration wants to get its position out because Goldberg is pro-Israel, landed an interview with John Kerry. The topline storyline is that Kerry is warning the U.S. Congress not to screw (with?) Ayatollah Ali Khamenei:
“The ayatollah constantly believed that we are untrustworthy, that you can’t negotiate with us, that we will screw them,” Kerry said. “This”—a congressional rejection—“will be the ultimate screwing.” He went on to argue that “the United States Congress will prove the ayatollah’s suspicion, and there’s no way he’s ever coming back. He will not come back to negotiate. Out of dignity, out of a suspicion that you can’t trust America. America is not going to negotiate in good faith. It didn’t negotiate in good faith now, would be his point.”
Seriously, we are afraid of ruining the expectations of an Ayatollah who defends calling for the death of America and Israel;

Posted by Amy Miller on August 05, 2015 11 Comments
Yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hosted a webcast with American Jewish participants urging them to oppose the Iran nuke deal. His message reached an estimated 10,000 people, and served as a counter to propaganda spread by pro-deal activists plying the media with misinformation about the motive behind Israel's opposition. From the Washington Examiner:
"The deal that was supposed to end nuclear proliferation, will actually trigger nuclear proliferation. It will trigger a nuclear arms race in the Middle East," contended Netanyahu. The Israeli Prime Minister, who spoke Tuesday afternoon on a video conference organized by the Jewish Federation of North America, pled with the nearly 10,000 participants to actively speak out against the deal. "The days when the Jewish people could not or would not speak up for themselves, those days are over," he said. "Today we can speak out. Today we must speak out. And we must do so together." Netanyahu, who has been an ardent critic of the deal argued that the agreement would bring Tehran closer to producing a nuclear weapon. "The nuclear deal with Iran doesn't block Iran's path to the bomb," he charged. "It actually paves Iran's path to the bomb." In the prime minister's estimation, if Iran upholds the agreement it could obtain a nuclear weapon within 15 years.
Watch:

Posted by Amy Miller on August 04, 2015 4 Comments
Yesterday, we posted about Iran's latest---and blatant---two-fold attempt to undermine the United States' moral authority and intimidate Jews living in Israel. The content of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's 400-page screed on the inviability of both western hegemony and the state of Israel wasn't particularly shocking, but it should serve as yet another wake up call for those who think it's within the realm of possibility for Iran to play by the rules when it comes to human rights, international relations, or even a budding nuclear program. For their part, Iranian officials are determined not only to flaunt the rules, but to make sure that those violations never make it onto the record. They've launched a smear campaign against Ahmed Shaheed, the United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran. The Guardian reports:
In a concerted effort aimed at discrediting Ahmed Shaheed in the eyes of the general public, Iranian state-run agencies and semi-official websites simultaneously carried articles claiming that the Saudi embassy in Kuwait had paid the UN envoy $1m to take an anti-Iran position. It dominated many Iranian front pages on Tuesday and an Iranian official later used the false information to question Shaheed’s credibility.

Posted by Amy Miller on August 03, 2015 21 Comments
Right on cue, Iran has proven just how woefully ignorant western powers are to the true motives of those pushing for controversial nuclear concessions. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has released a 416 page book blasting the existence of a Jewish state and touting a plan to "reclaim Muslim lands." "Palestine" labels the Holocaust "a propaganda ploy," describes Israel as a "cancerous tumor," and details how Khamenei believes Iran can bring about the end of both Israel, and the United States' claim to global hegemony. The crux of Khamenei's plan? The insane assertion that Israel has no right to exist as a state:
He uses three words. One is “nabudi” which means “annihilation.” The other is “imha” which means “fading out,” and, finally, there is “zaval” meaning “effacement.” Khamenei claims that his strategy for the destruction of Israel is not based on anti-Semitism, which he describes as a European phenomenon. His position is instead based on “well-established Islamic principles.” One such principle is that a land that falls under Muslim rule, even briefly, can never again be ceded to non-Muslims. What matters in Islam is ownership of a land’s government, even if the majority of inhabitants are non-Muslims.
Of course, Khamenei isn't suggesting that he'll simply push a button and sink Israel into the Mediterranean. Oh no---he's planning on dragging this out in the worst way possible.

Posted by David Gerstman on August 02, 2015 25 Comments
Late last week there was a significant event in the course of the nuclear negotiations with Iran. Iran lodged a complaint with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) complaining that the United States was already in "material breach" of the agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive  Plan of Action (JCPOA) based on a statement by White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest (quoted below) (h/t The Tower). Before addressing the (remarkably thin) substance of the complaint, it's interesting to note that the administration has been warning that the JCPOA is the best or perhaps only means to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon immediately. In the words of Secretary of State John Kerry last week at a Senate Armed Forces Committee hearing, if Congress rejects the deal Iran would "consider themselves free to go back and enrich and to go back to where they were with the 12,000 kilograms, 10-12 bombs, et cetera." Of course Iran may be preparing to say "no" before Congress decides on the deal. Will Kerry rebuke Iran and threaten that it follows through on its threats it risks being a pariah? So even without looking at the merits of the Iranian complaint, Iran, absent any Congressional action, is already attempting to free itself from the obligations it agreed to a little more than two weeks ago.

Posted by David Gerstman on July 29, 2015 53 Comments
In an essay for August issue of The Tower Magazine, former longtime editor of The New Republic, Martin Peretz calls on Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer to save the Democratic Party by leading the fight against the nuclear deal with Iran otherwise known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Two of the most powerful members of the Democratic Party, former and current senators from New York, now hold the fate of the putative deal with Iran in their hands. Because they alone can overturn it, this means that presumptive presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and presumptive Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer carry a heavy burden that will deeply affect their personal reputations and, most probably, the trustworthiness of the Democrats in foreign policy for at least a generation.
Clinton, for her part, has expressed support of the deal. For Peretz, opposing the JCPOA is essential for the Democrats. Noting that Iran re-opened negotiations over the conventional and ballistic arms embargoes at the last minute, Peretz urges Schumer and Hillary to force the administration to go back and re-open the deal improving some of its terms.
Obama the star negotiator has told us that the only other alternative to this treaty is to resolve the Iranian issue “through force, through war.” But, of course, there are other alternatives to war than deficient deals that damage our interests. Fortunately, America is full of talented, responsible, creative negotiators who can improve on the woefully low bar set by Obama, Biden, and Kerry in this catastrophic bargaining process.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on July 28, 2015 6 Comments
When all is said and done, one feature of Obama's presidency that will stand out is the sheer number of citizen protests against his policies. Such protests began in 2009, when regular Americans organized to protest federal fiscal policies, tax increases, and Obamacare. In fact, Professor Jacobson was recently treated to a taste of the zaniness our San Diego Tea Party groups often faced, in the form of progressive demonstrators protesting the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) event he was attending. However, showing that not all Californians are crazy, concerned citizens gathered in Balboa Park this weekend to protest the administration's latest pet project: the proposed nuclear agreement with Iran.
About 500 protesters came together Sunday in Balboa Park to speak out against the pending nuclear weapons agreement with Iran, a centerpiece of President Barack Obama’s foreign policy. The Stop Iran Now event was organized by StandWithUs, an international nonprofit organization that is pro-Israel and headquartered in Los Angeles, the site of another rally also held Sunday. Both rallies were part of a larger initiative with the Jewish Rapid Response Coalition, the same group that organized a protest in New York City's Times Square last week that brought out thousands of protesters.

Posted by Amy Miller on July 28, 2015 56 Comments
Today US Secretary of State John Kerry sat alongside Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz for a brutal afternoon of questioning before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the nuclear agreement arranged between the P5+1 and Iran in Vienna earlier this month. Throughout the hearing, Kerry attempted to stand firm on his previous assertions that the deal Congress will be voting on in September is "all or nothing;" republican committee members, however, voiced skepticism about whether or not a "deal" with Iran was even possible. From the Houston Chronicle, via the AP:
"If Congress does not support the deal, we would see this deal die — with no other options," Kerry told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday as he testified for the second time in a week, part of the Obama administration's all-out campaign to sell the accord. ... "Iran has cheated on every agreement they've signed," said Rep. Ed Royce, the panel's chairman. With Kerry, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew waiting to testify, he asked if Tehran "has earned the right to be trusted" given its history.
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