Wall Street Journal reports: The back story emerges -- Obama hid negotiations and details, from Israel and Congress....
Diplomats say the French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, telephoned the French delegation in Lausanne to ensure it did not make further concessions, and to insist that the bulk of UN sanctions could only be lifted if Iran gave a full explanation of evidence suggesting it may have done development work on nuclear warhead design in the past. ... The US offer on sanctions is to lift UN sanctions in layers in return each “irreversible” step Iran makes to scale down and limit its nuclear programme. There would be mechanisms in place by which sanctions would “spring back” if Iran violated the agreement, without the need for consensus in the UN security council. It is broadly supported by the UK and Germany, while Russia and China, the other members of the six-nation group, would offer more generous terms. Tehran is reluctant to accept sanctions relief based on milestones, but diplomats say the French position would be a complete deal-breaker. They say the Iranians would be very unlikely to admit past weapons work, which if revealed would demonstrate that the country’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, had misled the world. Better, US diplomats argue, to focus on limiting the current Iranian programme and worry about allegations about the past a few years down the road.Focus on the current issues and leave the allegations for the future? Are they crazy? Let's take a couple of paragraphs from United Nations Security Council Resolution 1696, which was passed in July 2006 and was the first of six resolutions passed against Iran for its violations of the Nuclear Nonproliferation treaty.
Regardless of what Secretary Kerry tells the Associated Press, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, Iran's Supreme Leader is not exactly a fan of Obama, America, or any deal that doesn't remove sanctions. And if you need more proof, look no further than than the Ayatollah's Twitter feed.Take a minute to scroll through @khamenei_ir’s twitter feed today. Further proof Iran is not a rational, peaceful actor. #IranTalks
— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) March 21, 2015
#Obama says in his #Nowruz message:submit to what we dictate so that your economic activity boosts! This is an arrogant viewpoint.#Irantalks
— Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) March 21, 2015
#Sanctions are enemy's only means for putting pressure on ppl.Prudence will nullify sanctions showing that we have to rely on ourselves.
— Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) March 21, 2015
Hadi sounded a defiant note from his base in the south on Saturday, threatening action against the Houthis’ northern stronghold. “We shall deliver the country to safety and raise Yemen’s flag on Mount Marran in Saadeh instead of the Iranian flag,” he said in a televised speech, his first since reaching Aden. Iran is an ally of the Houthis, who belong to a Shia Muslim sect. The Houthis, in a statement from their Supreme Revolutionary Committee, did not directly respond to the speech but called for a “general mobilisation” of the armed forces against a “dirty war” they said was being waged by militias loyal to Hadi.
In their statement, the rebels described their coming offensive against security and military institutions loyal to President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi as a battle against extremists. Their appeal came just minutes after Hadi gave a defiant speech challenging the Houthis, his first address broadcast to the public since fleeing Sanaa last month. He described the rebels' rule in Sanaa and elsewhere as "a coup against constitutional legitimacy." The U.S. troops, including Special Forces commandos, were leaving the al-Annad air base near the southern city of al-Houta, Yemeni military and security officials said. Speaking on condition of anonymity as they weren't authorized to discuss troop movements, the officials did not say whether the troops had left the country. Some 100 American troops and Special Forces commandos are believed to be stationed there. U.S. officials declined immediate comment Saturday.Fox News has more:
Calls Obama's claim that hard liners in Iran oppose a deal "a lie."...
In recent weeks, members of Congress have held closed-door meetings with U.S. military officials to press for an accounting of the arms and equipment. Pentagon officials have said that they have little information to go on and that there is little they can do at this point to prevent the weapons and gear from falling into the wrong hands. “We have to assume it’s completely compromised and gone,” said a legislative aide on Capitol Hill who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. U.S. military officials declined to comment for the record. A defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the Pentagon, said there was no hard evidence that U.S. arms or equipment had been looted or confiscated. But the official acknowledged that the Pentagon had lost track of the items.Who likely got their hands on it? Either al Qaeda, or the Houthi---and neither prospect offers much hope for their return. WaPo created an infographic displaying military aid the US has sent to Yemen since 2010:
Mr. Kerry said on Saturday in Egypt that these American lawmakers were “wrong.” “It is almost inevitable it will raise questions in the minds of the folks with whom we’re negotiating as to whether or not they are negotiating with the executive department and the president, which is what the constitution says, or whether there are 535 members of Congress,” Mr. Kerry told reporters in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. “Let me make clear to Iran…that from our point of view, this letter is incorrect in its statements,” he added. “As far as we are concerned, the Congress has no ability to change an executive agreement.”It strikes me as odd that Kerry is doubling down on his non-binding argument. An executive agreement is not binding, unlike a treaty, and therefore not subject to Congressional review. It's also odd that he claims, "as far as we are concerned." Shouldn't the Constitution be the standard by which the Republican claims are judged? Finally, there's Kerry's famous declaration at the time the Joint Plan of Action was signed in November 2013 that the agreement was not based on trust. So if the agreement is not based on trust and it's non-binding what "mechanism" will there to be verify that Iran isn't overtly or covertly pursuing an illicit nuclear program? More and more I'm convinced that Cotton's reason for writing the letter was to smoke out the administration on this point.
In 1991, the London Times published a memo pulled from the Soviet archives offering proof that in 1983, Senator Ted Kennedy worked with an old law school friend by the name of John Tunney to relay a message from himself to Yuri Andropov, a top official in Russia's Communist regime.
I should bring one important point to the attention of the authors and that is, the world is not the United States, and the conduct of inter-state relations is governed by international law, and not by US domestic law. The authors may not fully understand that in international law, governments represent the entirety of their respective states, are responsible for the conduct of foreign affairs, are required to fulfill the obligations they undertake with other states and may not invoke their internal law as justification for failure to perform their international obligations.Zarif's statement isn't exactly incorrect, but it in no way negates the fact that for any agreement involving the United States to be a binding agreement on the international stage, it must first pass Congressional scrutiny... which is exactly what Senator Cotton and his 46 compadres pointed out. Conversely, any agreement reached without Congressional consent is not legally binding.
"We are on the same page," U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters after talks with French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius in Paris. "If we didn’t think that there was further to go, as Laurent said, we’d have had an agreement already," Kerry added. "The reason we don't have an agreement is we believe there are gaps that have to be closed, there are things that have to be done to further strengthen this; we know this." The goal of the talks is to persuade Iran to restrain its nuclear program. In exchange, Iran would get limited relief from sanctions that have crippled its economy. EU's foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, says the next two weeks will be crucial: "In the coming few days, there will be intense work from all sides to bridge the gaps that are still remaining and to make sure that this historic opportunity is not missed."Watch:
The fatwa Khomeini issued makes chilling reading even today. Here’s a translation: "I would like to inform all the intrepid Muslims in the world that the author of the book entitled ‘Satanic Verses’. . . as well as those publishers who were aware of its contents, are hereby sentenced to death. I call on all zealous Moslems to execute them quickly, wherever they find them, so that no one will dare to insult Islamic sanctity. Whoever is killed doing this will be regarded as a martyr and will go directly to heaven."
Speaking to Thomas Roberts shortly after Netanyahu’s speech ended, Matthews said definitively, “This man from a foreign government walked into the United States legislative chamber and tried to take over foreign policy.” “He said you should trust me, not your president on this,” Matthews continued, describing the tone of Netanyahu’s remarks. “I’m the man you should trust, I’m your true leader on this question of U.S. geopolitics. If you want to protect yourself, you must listen to me and not this president.” Calling the situation “startling,” Matthews said, “It’s a remarkable day when the leaders of the opposition in Congress allowed this to happen. Think it through, what country in the world would let a foreign leader come in and attempt to rest from the president control of U.S. foreign policy?” “This was a takeover attempt by Netanyahu with his complying American partners to take American foreign policy out of the hands of the president,” he concluded.Watch:
Now keep in mind the prime minister, when we signed up for this interim deal that would essentially freeze Iran’s program, roll back its highly enriched uranium - its 20 percent highly enriched uranium - and so reduce the possibility that Iran might breakout while we were engaged in these negotiations, when we first announced this interim a deal, Prime Minister Netanyahu made all sorts of claims. This was going to be a terrible deal. This was going to result in Iran getting 50 billion dollars worth of relief. Iran would not abide by the agreement. None of that has come true.I'm not sure that Netanyahu made a claim of $50 billion in sanctions relief. I believe the number was closer to $20 billion and that the actual relief Iran got was closer to the Israeli estimate than the administration's lowball estimate. But I don't have the time right now to research this, but I'm skeptical about this claim.
I’m fairly sure Netanyahu will deliver a powerful speech, in part because he is eloquent in English and forceful in presentation. But there is another reason this speech may be strong: Netanyahu has a credible case to make. Any nuclear agreement that allows Iran to maintain a native uranium-enrichment capability is a dicey proposition; in fact, any agreement at all with an empire-building, Assad-sponsoring, Yemen-conquering, Israel-loathing, theocratic terror regime is a dicey proposition. The deal that seems to be taking shape right now does not fill me—or many others who support a diplomatic solution to this crisis—with confidence. Reports suggest that the prospective agreement will legitimate Iran’s right to enrich uranium (a “right” that doesn’t actually exist in international law); it will allow Iran to maintain many thousands of operating centrifuges; and it will lapse after 10 or 15 years, at which point Iran would theoretically be free to go nuclear. (The matter of the sunset clause worries me, but I’m more worried that the Iranians will find a way to cheat their way out of the agreement even before the sun is scheduled to set.) ... This is a very dangerous moment for Obama and for the world. He has made many promises, and if he fails to keep them—if he inadvertently (or, God forbid, advertently) sets Iran on the path to the nuclear threshold, he will be forever remembered as the president who sparked a nuclear-arms race in the world’s most volatile region, and for breaking a decades-old promise to Israel that the United States would defend its existence and viability as the nation-state of the Jewish people.And as Goldberg noted, three years ago Obama promised in one of Goldberg's columns, “We’ve got Israel’s back.”
