Obama Needs To Use Red Mark Erasers (Eze 17)

 

Team Obama just crossed its own nuclear red line

By Post Editorial Board
June 19, 2015 | 7:42pm

Yet another Obama red line has been crossed. Only this time, Team Obama are the ones who crossed it.

Secretary of State John Kerry this week threw in the towel on a requirement that he long called essential to any nuke agreement with Iran: requiring Tehran to account for all of its past nuclear work.

Never mind, he now says: “We’re not fixated on Iran specifically accounting for what they did at one point in time or another.”

“We have absolute knowledge with respect to the certain military activities they were engaged in,” he added.

No, we don’t — as everyone who’s worked on the issue will tell you. They’ll also tell you that, absent that accounting, it’ll be impossible to verify if Iran is complying with any deal.

Kerry’s statement is a 180 from what he said just weeks ago. Asked in April about the insistence that Iran disclose its past military-related nuclear activity, he replied: “They have to do it. It will be done. If there’s going to be a deal, it will be done.”

Iran’s nuke program long predates 2003, when the world first learned of it.

If we don’t know what they were doing then, there’s no way to tell if they’ve stopped. As former CIA Director Michael Hayden said, Kerry is “pretending we have perfect knowledge about something that was an incredibly tough intelligence target when I was director, and I see nothing that has made it any easier.”

Little wonder, then, that the State Department insists Kerry’s comments don’t reflect “any kind of concession or change in policy.”

For months, Kerry and President Obama promised the country — and skeptics in Congress — that they wouldn’t take a deal that didn’t include full Iranian disclosure. Now, plainly, Tehran’s refusing to go along — yet our leaders so want some deal that they’ll swallow it, and then lie.

The question is, are key leaders on Capitol Hill — we’re talking to you, Sen. Chuck Schumer — going to pretend they buy the lie?

Giving More Concessions To Iran (Eze 17)

  


Negotiators may let Iran slide on past nuclear work

BY: Charles Hoskinson June 12, 2015 | 12:52 pm

The Obama administration and its international negotiating partners appear willing to sign a nuclear deal with Iran that would not require Tehran to come clean on possible past work to develop a nuclear weapon, which experts have called crucial to ensuring any agreement can be verified.

The Associated Press, citing Western and U.S. officials, reported Thursday that members of the P5+1 group — the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Russia and China — were prepared to accept a deal that does not immediately answer questions about Iran’s past nuclear weapons program, in spite of the administration’s insistence that those questions must be resolved in any agreement.

As negotiators race to meet a July 1 deadline, this apparent concession will likely cause problems for the administration in Congress, where lawmakers have heard months of testimony from neutral experts saying this is a crucial element in verifying under any agreement that Iran’s nuclear program remains peaceful.

Once an agreement is signed, lawmakers will have 30 days to review it and decide whether to reject it. Obama can veto any rejection. The ability to verify a deal has been a major bipartisan concern, and may sway the votes of Democrats in whose hands the fate of any agreement will ultimately rest.

Iran is required by U.N. Security Council resolutions to detail any past secret work on nuclear weapons, which is believed to have ended more than a decade ago. But the International Atomic Energy Agency has said Tehran has not complied with that requirement.

Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, who has emerged as the leading Democratic critic of the deal, noted the lack of progress in a floor speech Thursday.

“We can’t trust Iran to abide by its agreements or to abide by United Nations resolutions even when they are in the midst of negotiations, when you think they’d be behaving the best,” he said. “Why do we think we can trust them if they are violating U.N. Security Council resolutions, which is the world, not the U.S., not even the P5+1, but the world, telling them ‘you can’t do these things?'”

“Iran…needs to be held responsible for its commitments — forget about its word — its commitments. There can be no slippage, no delays, no obfuscation.”

Any concession on this issue may also cause a split in the negotiating group, most notably with France, which has taken a hard line on this issue. Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said May 27 that it would be a deal-breaker if Iran denies access to military sites, backing up the IAEA’s interpretation of Iran’s obligations. He was reacting to comments a week earlier by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, that ruled out such access.

Obama Expected To Make Concessions With Iran

Expect Obama to Compromise With Iran

Monday, 27 Oct 2014 03:37 PM

By Herbert London

 

It is something of an old saw to contend that if a woman says “no,” she means “maybe.” If she says “maybe” she means “yes,” but if she says “yes” she is not a “lady.” Similarly if a man says “yes,” he means “maybe,” if he says “maybe” he means “no,” but if says “no,” he could not possibly be a negotiator in Vienna for the Obama administration.

 

So keen is President Obama on a deal with Iran, he cannot say “no.” The fact that zero tolerance for an Iran with nuclear weapons is no longer a negotiating point is telling. The fact that Iran’s missile force site is not on the agenda suggests yet another concession.

 

The fact that the U.S. has already conceded the existence of at least 1,500 centrifuges, enriching uranium indicates U.S. “flexibility.” And the fact the plutonium facility is not a discussable item suggests pre-emptive acceptance of the Iranian position.

 

After one failure on the foreign policy front after another, Obama needs a victory or, more accurately, the appearance of victory. He is likely to get one and only one concession from the Iranian negotiating team: It will pledge not to weaponize its missiles.

 

The translation is that Iran will have the fissile capability to build nuclear weapons and a delivery force with the Shahab 3 and the Kavoshgar 3 rocket used as a space launch. But it will say the two are not to be united. Of course, no one but Obama will take this claim seriously.

 

Nevertheless, President Obama amid some media fanfare will argue that through the negotiating skill of his team, he has achieved an understanding with Iran that will avert hostility with this once-adversarial nation.

 

Iran’s President Ruhani will merely shake hands with Secretary Kerry for a photo op. and go on his merry way knowing that he duped the feckless Obama representatives into a deal that will give Iran enormous leverage in pursuing its dominant long-term regional goal.

 

Recognizing the flaws in the agreement, senators on both sides of the aisle will object to being left out of the negotiations. Some will even cite a constitutional provision that maintains the Senate must ratify treaties, but Obama will argue deceitfully that this deal isn’t a treaty, but merely an understanding or accord.

 

The Israeli president and representatives will balk contending that this agreement sets the stage for a second Holocaust. Not only has Iran pledged to wipe Israel off the map; it will have the means to do so. Secretary Kerry will be dispatched to Tel Aviv to assure Israeli leaders deterrence will work. No one is likely to believe him, but that too doesn’t make any difference.

 

With the completion of the deal, the Middle East is forever changed. All escalation scenarios in regional conflict will have to account for the prospect of an Iranian bomb. To deter acts of aggression enhanced by this prospect, Egypt and Saudi Arabia will acquire nuclear weapons from Pakistan. The region will now be hostage to a possible nuclear war.

 

Obama may get his political victory but at a price that puts the international community in a precarious state into the distant future. Thinking the unthinkable becomes thinkable again.

 

John Dryden wrote “. . . fool’d with hope, men favor the deceit.” One might contend that the naïve hope for the best and believe it will be achieved, but the sly enemy thinks hope is my ally in the effort to pursue negotiating advantage. Let the forces of innocence betray themselves on the altar of acceptance. The Ides of March are before us and we must entertain very bleak and uncomfortable scenarios.