Thanks to Obama, Islamist Iran now on the Path to Nuclear Weapons !

Greg Sheridan (the Australian's foreign editor, is the most influential foreign affairs analyst in Australian journalism. After 25 years in the field, he is a veteran of international affairs)  warns that Barack Obama has given Iran a nuclear deal it can rort sideways:

The benefits in this deal for Iran are immense. It gets tens, ultim­ately hundreds, of billions of dollars in sanctions relief. 

Despite the nonsensical notion of a sanctions “snapback” if Iran is found to violate the deal, the business of constructing international consensus for effective sanctions is so laborious, painstaking and time-consuming that once sanctions are gone there is very little chance of their ever being imposed again, especially as Iran will deny any violation.

Iran also ...  does not have to destroy or abandon one single nuclear facility. But what about inspections, won’t they prevent Iran from cheating? The inspections regime in this deal is infinitely weaker than that which the Americans previously said was their absolute minimum. There are no surprise inspections and military facilities are altogether off the table. Don’t we need Iran’s help to confront Islamic State? Isn’t Iran becoming more moderate?

As to moderation, the allegedly moderate President of Iran, Hassan Rouhani, was marching through the streets of Tehran last Friday at the head of the annual “Death to America! Death to Israel!” parade, in which those two plainly moderate and reassuring slogans were shouted by the crowds.

Colin Rubenstein [photo below] (Senior Lecturer in Politics at Monash University and Editorial Chairman of Australia/Israel Review) :

Even if Iran abides by the deal, it will retain most of its nuclear program and all its facilities, but will be prohibited from expanding or modernising its uranium enrichment infrastructure for at least a decade. After that, it is effectively open slather…
While the sunset clause is a huge concession to Iran, there are serious doubts that even the 10-year time frame can be maintained because of the weak inspections regime and Iran’s history of concealing its nuclear sites. 

Earlier this year, US  President Barack Obama promised that a deal would allow for “anytime, anywhere” inspections. However, that is not in the deal. Instead, the deal provides for “managed” inspections that require international inspectors to comply with a convoluted dispute resolution mechanism whenever they want to inspect locations outside known nuclear sites at Fordow and Natanz. 

The process is likely to take a minimum of 24 days. Therefore, there can be no “surprise” visits and the dispute mechanism will provide Iran ample time to conceal any breaches before allowing in inspectors. 

“Can you imagine giving a drug dealer 24 days’ notice before you inspect the premises?” an angry Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu (photo below), said. “That’s a lot of time to flush a lot of meth down the toilet. What were these idiots thinking?”

Obama has claimed sanctions will simply “snap back” if any breach by Iran is detected,

but such claims appear fanciful. Not only do the inspection problems make it very unlikely Iran will be unambiguously caught cheating, once sanctions are lifted reinstating them would require a long process of consideration by a joint commission consisting of Iran and the six world powers before the issue can be referred back to the UN Security Council.

Furthermore, once sanctions are lifted — probably later this year — it will free about $150 billion that Iran can use to further its plans to dominate the region and export its “Islamic Revolution” — which include its funding of the Assad regime in Syria and Houthi rebels in Yemen, and supporting terrorist groups Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

The Way I See It......
It seems that the deal the U.S. and Europe have struck with Iran over its nuclear program means:

- Iran does not have to dismantle its basic nuclear infrastructure.
- Iran needs to wait just 15 years before most of the supervision stops.
- arms embargoes on Iran, a fascist power sponsoring leading terrorist groups, end after just five years.
- the sanctions will gradually lift, and the challenge will be to reimpose them if there’s a breach of the deal by Iran.
- surprise inspections of suspect sites other than the agreement’s designated site are severely limited, with Iran given the power to delay them by 24 days.
- breaches of the deal by Iraq are meant to see sanctions “snap back”, but the UN has 65 days before agreeing to reimpose the ones it voted for.  

Netanyahu sums up this deal: ''I think Iran has two paths to the bomb: One if they keep the deal, the other if they cheat on the deal'' he said. ''This strikes me as seriously naïve and dangerous ''.