Part 2 - More Insight into the Obama and Iranian Nuclear Deal !

The devil is not in the details. It’s in the entire conception of the Iran deal, animated by President Obama’s fantastical belief that he, uniquely, could achieve detente with a fanatical Islamist regime whose foundational purpose is to cleanse the Middle East of the poisonous corruption of American power and influence.
 

In pursuit of his desire to make the Islamic Republic into an accepted, normalized “successful regional power,” Obama decided to take over the nuclear negotiations. At the time, Tehran was reeling — the rial plunging, inflation skyrocketing, the economy contracting — under a regime of international sanctions painstakingly constructed over a decade.

Then, instead of welcoming Congress’ attempt to tighten sanctions to increase the pressure on the mullahs, Obama began the negotiations by loosening sanctions, injecting billions into the Iranian economy (which began growing again in 2014) and conceding in advance an Iranian right to enrich uranium.

It’s been downhill ever since. Desperate for a legacy deal, Obama has played the supplicant, abandoning every red line his administration had declared essential to any acceptable deal.
Inspections: They were to be anywhere, anytime, unimpeded. Now? Total cave. Unfettered access has become “manage access.” Nuclear inspectors will have to negotiate and receive Iranian approval for inspections. Which allows them denial and/or crucial delay for concealing any clandestine activities.

To give a flavor of the degree of our capitulation, the administration played Iran’s lawyer on this one, explaining that, after all, “the United States of America wouldn’t allow anybody to get into every military site, so that’s not appropriate.” Apart from the absurdity of morally equating America with the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism, if we were going to parrot the Iranian position, why wait 19 months to do so — after repeatedly insisting on free access as essential to any inspection regime?

Coming clean on past nuclear activity: The current interim agreement that governed the past 19 months of negotiation required Iran to do exactly that. Tehran has offered nothing. The administration had insisted that this accounting was essential because how can you verify future illegal advances in Iran’s nuclear program if you have no baseline?

After continually demanding access to their scientists, plans and weaponization facilities, Secretary of State John Kerry two weeks ago airily dismissed the need, saying he is focused on the future,

Kerry shrugs off concerns over access.

“not fixated on the past and that we have “absolute knowledge of the Iranian program anyway'' — a whopper that his staffers had to spend days walking back.

Not to worry, we are told. The accounting will be done after the final deal is signed. Which is ridiculous. If the Iranians haven’t budged on disclosing previous work under the current sanctions regime, by what logic will they comply after sanctions are lifted?

Sanctions relief: These were to be gradual and staged as the International Atomic Energy Agency certified Iranian compliance over time. Now we’re going to be releasing up to $150 billion as an upfront signing bonus. That’s 25 times the annual budget of the infamous Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Enough to fuel a generation of intensified Iranian aggression from Yemen to Lebanon to Bahrain.

Yet three months ago, Obama expressed his usual nonchalance about immediate sanctions relief. It’s not the issue, he said. The real issue is “snap-back” sanctions to be reimposed if Iran is found in

violation. I'm sure reality will snap-back and hit him between the eyes soon enough.

Good grief. Iran won’t be found in violation. The inspection regime is laughable and the bureaucratic procedures endless. Moreover, does anyone imagine that Russia and China will reimpose sanctions? Or that the myriad European businesses preparing to join the Iranian gold rush the day the deal is signed will simply turn around and go home?

Nonnuclear-related sanctions: The administration insisted that the nuclear talks would not affect separate sanctions imposed because of Iranian aggression and terrorism. That was then. The administration is now leaking that everything will be lifted.

Taken together, the catalog of capitulations is breathtaking: spot inspections, disclosure of previous nuclear activity, gradual sanctions relief, retention of nonnuclear sanctions. What’s left? A surrender document of the kind offered by defeated nations suing for peace. Consider: The strongest military and economic power on earth, backed by the five other major powers, armed with what had been a crushing sanctions regime, is about to sign the worst international agreement in U.S. diplomatic history.
  
At first, US policy was that Iran must not have a nuclear program and it would impose sanctions that it would trade away for Iran abandoning its nuclear program. Then Washington’s position was that Iran could have nuclear reactors but not a uranium enrichment capacity.

Now, the US position is that Iran is entitled to master the entire nuclear fuel cycle in all its aspects and to sustain a large and growing nuclear capacity, and that within a few short years every single notional restriction should be lifted, except that Iran promise not to acquire nuclear weapons.

Western analysts optimistic about this deal are creating a make-believe Iran in their heads. For a start, the Iranian regime is the first since Adolf Hitler’s to have official anti-Semitism as a core part of its

governing ideology.  Jewish shop shut (1933).

As recently as a few weeks ago, one of Iran’s most senior military commanders, in making it clear that any deal with the US would not moderate Tehran’s political and regional behaviour, declared that the right to wipe Israel off the map was non-negotiable.

None of this is even to scratch the surface of Iran’s continued illegal importation of dual-use technology, its role in killing American soldiers in Iraq, the testimony by American military leaders that the new wealth Iran will receive from sanctions relief will be used to finance more international terrorism, its support for Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas in Gaza or Hezbollah, still defined as a terrorist group in Australian law, in Lebanon, or extremists in Yemen.

Charles Krauthammer ( an American Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist, author, political

commentator, and physician. His weekly column is syndicated to more than 400 newspapers worldwide ) [photo left] writes:

When you write a column, as did I two weeks ago, headlined ''The worst agreement in U.S. diplomatic history,'' you don’t expect to revisit the issue. We had hit bottom. Or so I thought. 

Then on Tuesday the final terms of the Iranian nuclear deal were published…
Who would have imagined we would be giving up the conventional arms and ballistic missile embargoes on Iran? In nuclear negotiations?… Because Iran, joined by Russia — our “reset” partner — sprung the demand at the last minute, calculating that Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry were so desperate for a deal that they would cave.  

They did !
The net effect of this capitulation will be not only to endanger our Middle East allies now under threat from Iran and its proxies, but also to endanger our own naval forces in the Persian Gulf… The other major shock in the final deal is what happened to our insistence on “anytime, anywhere” inspections. Under the final agreement, Iran has the right to deny any and all international inspectors access to any undeclared nuclear site. The approval process can take 24 days. And what do you think will be left to be found, left unscrubbed, after 24 days? The whole process is farcical.  No wonder Iran's President, Hassan Rouhani   (photo above) boasts that this deal is a ''Win-Win for Iraq.'' 

The Way I See It.......in my view, the [nuclear] deal represents complete strategic capitulation by Obama to a steadfast and ruthless administration in Tehran. Obama imagines that this deal will bring Iran in from the cold, tempering its territorial ambitions and ideological radicalism. But this defies logic: With sanctions lifted, its economy booming and tens of billions injected into its treasury, why would Iran curb rather than expand its relentless drive for regional dominance?

With every concession, Obama and Kerry made clear they were desperate for a deal. And they will get it. Obama will get his “legacy.” Kerry will get his Nobel. And Iran will get the bomb. Crazy !!