As American officials tout success of nuclear negotiations, Iran's Supreme Leader says the negotiations are failing....
Key elements of a new nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers are contained in an informal, 30-page text not yet publicly acknowledged by Western officials, Iran’s chief negotiator said Monday.... A State Department spokeswoman, Marie Harf, denied later Monday that there was any secret agreement. "Any documentation associated with implementation tracks completely with what we've described," she said. "These are technical plans submitted to the International Atomic Energy Agency," the United Nations' nuclear watchdog agency. "We will make information available to Congress and the public as it becomes available," Harf said.Remember last fall when the Obama administration insisted it had not consented to Iran's right to enrich uranium, even though Rouhani was claiming we had consented? Q&A: Is there a 'right' to enrich uranium? Iran says yes, U.S. no How's that looking now? Again from the L.A. Times article:
When I was almost fifty four, it was a very good year It was a very good year for kindly faced clerics Whose Justice Minister was an executioner And Defense Minister waged an anti-American war When I was almost fifty four.Nearly two years ago Jeffrey Goldberg interviewed President Obama about how he would deal with the threat from Iran. Given Goldberg's support for Israel, the interview was part of an administration campaign to tell Israel and Israel's supporters in the United States that "we've got Israel's back." It's unsettling now, that Goldberg has declared that For Iran, 2013 Was a Very Good Year.
Remember that interim Iranian nuclear agreement forged in Geneva on Nov. 24, the one accompanied by blaring trumpets and soaring doves? Would it surprise you to know that the agreement -- a deal that doesn’t, by the way, neutralize the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program, just freezes the program, more or less, in place -- has not yet been implemented? Would it surprise you to learn that this deal might not be implemented for another month, or more? Or that in this long period of non-implementation, Iran is free to do with its nuclear program whatever it wishes? And that one of the things it is doing is building and testing new generations of centrifuges? Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Agency, recently said , “We have two types of second-generation centrifuges. We also have future generations which are going through their tests.” Happy New Year, everyone.
President Obama says that we need to "test" Iran. Iran's actions in recent weeks suggest that test is already failing....
Mideast Media Sampler 12/20/2103 - Iran continues enriching...
In the coming months when Iran and the West have a dispute over the meaning of terms of the Geneva deal or the discovery of something suspicious in Iran, Iran knows that it can bluff its way out of suffering any consequences for its bad faith.Last week the Treasury Department designated a number of companies and individuals for their illegal trade with Iran.
“The Joint Plan of Action reached in Geneva does not, and will not, interfere with our continued efforts to expose and disrupt those supporting Iran’s nuclear program or seeking to evade our sanctions. These sanctions have isolated Iran from the international financial system, imposed enormous pressure on the Iranian economy, and motivated the Iranian leadership to make the first meaningful concessions on its nuclear program in over a decade,” said Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David S. Cohen. “Today’s actions should be a stark reminder to businesses, banks, and brokers everywhere that we will continue relentlessly to enforce our sanctions, even as we explore the possibility of a long-term, comprehensive resolution of our concerns with Iran’s nuclear program.”The Iranian reaction was predictable.
Iranian negotiators in Vienna halted nuclear talks with major powers to return to Tehran for consultations Thursday after Washington blacklisted a dozen companies and individuals for evading US sanctions, Islamic Republic state media reported.Iran's deputy nuclear negotiator Abbas Araqchi added:
But those polls dealt in generalities. It's easy to support negotiations in principle; it's much harder to support a specific deal, which would necessarily require U.S. concessions as well as placing a degree of trust in the Iranian government, which is not exactly popular here in the United States. The reason this latest poll merits special attention is that it asked Americans whether they would support the deal currently under discussion between Iran and the major world powers at Geneva.But in subsequent weeks, a funny thing has happened, support the deal has eroded as Shmuel Rosner shows in a recent column tracking polls on the topic.
While the first polls following the the recent interim agreement with Iran all showed that the deal was met with a generally positive reaction by the American public, the latest Pew survey puts this view in question (according to Pew, there are more Americans who disapprove of the deal than Americans who support it). Is this a result of some of the public criticism the deal has received- or is it a matter of phrasing the question and of methodology?Even a Reuters poll from the end of November that shows support for the deal by a ratio of two to one (44 percent to 22 percent) found 34 percent had no opinion on the deal. (Rosner supplied the "no opinion" number.)
CBS NEWS’S JOHN DICKERSON: Senator Corker, is it a red line for you? You talked about the standards of any ultimate deal. Is enrichment of any kind by Iran, is that something everybody should stay focused on? That any deal that includes that is a non-starter for you, because, of course, the Iranians say that they expect to be able to keep enriching? SEN. BOB CORKER (R-Tenn.): Yes, so to me that’s a baseline that the U.N. Security Council has agreed to, I think, six times, certainly this administration negotiated that in 2010. So they negotiated that in 2010. So as long as they can enrich, it seems to me that we are violating the very standards that we set in place in the first place. – exchange on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Dec. 1, 2013Kessler didn't hand out any Pinnochios to the senators but still found fault with their responses:
With their comments, Menendez and Corker might have left viewers with the impression that the U.N. resolutions already require a suspension of enrichment in any final agreement. That’s not the case — though it can certainly be an ongoing demand. The administration, for its part, appears to have set that goal aside in an effort to keep the diplomacy moving. The lawmakers are certainly within their rights to call attention to this decision, but they should be more precise in their language about what the U.N. resolutions actually require. Given that they were speaking on live television and this is a complex issue, their comments, at this point, do not yet rise to the level of a Pinocchio.Perhaps the senators were a bit sloppy, but I think the question asked of them was misleading. The question shouldn't have been whether Iran would be allowed to enrich uranium as part of any final agreement, but whether Iran would prove that its nuclear program was strictly civilian. In introducing his analysis, Kessler wrote:
The Iran nuclear deal has significant repercussions. The region’s peoples are the biggest winners from this deal because regional and international forces have been pushing for war with Iran which would have had dangerous repercussions in the region. The deal pushed off the [potential Israeli and US] war [against Iran]. Israel cannot possibly bomb nuclear facilities without the US’ green light. Monopoly of power is no longer present. All American wars have failed. John Kerry made it clear that the US does not want more wars. The US and Europe have failed in the region. It is unlikely that normalization will take place. Iranians wanted to reassure the Gulf countries, especially Saudi Arabia. [interview in progress, check link for more]More translation at Naharnet:
Nine years ago the New York Times argued that Iran must "abandon its nuclear fuel enrichment efforts," but now supports a deal which enables such enrichment....
Along the way, Ms. Sherman was the State Department’s chief strategist in dealing with the North Korean nuclear program. It was a searing experience, in both its temporary successes and long-term failure, that prepared her for the complexity of the Iranian negotiations, and has made her a target for those on Capitol Hill who argue that history is about to repeat itself.What were the temporary successes? It was coming to agreements with the rogue regime. The long term failure stemmed from trusting those successes to deter North Korea. So if and when Iran develops a nuclear weapon, will we read about the temporary success of Geneva? For a history of Wendy Sherman that doesn't pull punches see Axis of Fantasy vs. Axis of Reality by Bret Stephens:
The killing of at least 70 people around the central town of Homs in the past five days, according to activists, brought to an estimated 1,100 the total toll in Mr. Assad's months-long crackdown and sparked tougher condemnation from the Obama administration. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged other Arab states, Russia and China to join in protesting the violence. ... Mrs. Clinton's ambiguity highlights the frustrating U.S. courtship of Bashar al-Assad. For more than two years, Mr. Obama's foreign-policy team has tried to woo Mr. Assad away from America's regional nemesis, Iran, and persuade him to resume peace talks with America's regional friend, Israel. For more than two years, Mr. Assad has frustrated the U.S. with the promise of reform and the practice of repression.One detail in particular about the Obama administration's first term outreach to Syria sticks out, "Mr. Kerry, meanwhile, became Mr. Assad's champion in the U.S., urging lawmakers and policymakers to embrace the Syrian leader as a partner in stabilizing the Mideast." When it came to Syria John Kerry was out in front.
THE FACT sheet distributed by the Obama administration about the nuclear agreement with Iran is notable for its omissions. The 2,000-word document, like President Obama’s televised statement Saturday night about the deal, stresses Iran’s pledge to cap its enrichment of uranium, delay the completion of a plutonium-producing reactor and accept additional inspections — measures that will guard against an attempt to produce a bomb while negotiations continue.
The majority of the medical equipment taken to Japan by the IDF, including x-ray machinery and lab equipment, will remain in Japan in order to benefit the physicians and local authorities providing care to the community of Minamisanriku and its vicinity. ...
Iran is currently enjoying a “window” of time before the six-month deal signed in Geneva early Sunday goes into effect, during which it is not bound to take any credible steps toward disabling its ability to produce a nuclear weapon, the State Department acknowledged Tuesday. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that the six-month interim period, during which Iran would take steps to rein in its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief, has not yet begun. Furthermore, there are still a number of details to be worked out, she said, without specifying what points had yet to be finalized.
Seriously. https://twitter.com/DanRiehl/status/405455788228882433 From Fars News Agency, Iran Strongly Rejects Text of Geneva Agreement Released by White House: TEHRAN (FNA)- The Iranian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday called invalid a press release by the White House alleged to be the text of the nuclear agreement struck by Iran and the...
U.S. President Barack Obama has had two overarching goals in the Iran crisis. The first was to stop the Iranian regime from gaining possession of a nuclear weapon. The second was to prevent Israel from attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities. This weekend, the president achieved one of these goals. He boxed-in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu so comprehensively that it's unimaginable Israel will strike Iran in the foreseeable future. Netanyahu had his best chance to attack in 2010 and 2011, and he missed it. He came close but was swayed by Obama’s demand that he keep his planes parked. It would be a foolhardy act -- one that could turn Israel into a true pariah state, and bring about the collapse of sanctions and possible war in the Middle East -- if Israel were to attack Iran now, in the middle of negotiations.I think it's much broader than forestalling an Israeli attack.
Under the interim agreement Iran will be allowed to enrich uranium at low levels. Iran's foreign minister, Javad Zarif said the deal recognized his country's nuclear program. This is a major victory for Iran whose leaders have insisted for nearly a decade that it has the right to enrich uranium under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Officially, the Obama administration has not recognized that any country has this right under the treaty. It has argued that Iran has to adhere to the terms of prior U.N. Security Council resolutions that prohibit Iran from enrichment.It is smoke and mirrors, allowing the Obama administration to declare diplomatic victory, change the subject, and create the straw man argument that anyone opposed to the agreement wants war. https://twitter.com/JohnCornyn/status/404624480837722112 https://twitter.com/dansenor/status/404626184865996800
