The Obama administration, so desperate to make a deal, any deal with Iran, has managed to make a deal that the Iranians want. They don’t have to get rid of their centrifuges. They’re not shutting down and nuclear plants. So what’s the big deal to dump their current stock of fissile material? They can just make more, in very little time. So, Iran gets sanctions lifted for six month and the verification that they’re holding up their end of the bargain? Well, Iran cheated before. And word is they’re building a couple more nuclear plants in tunnels under the mountains.
The agreement calls for Iran to stop its production of near-weapons grade nuclear fuel—which is uranium enriched to 20% purity—and for the removal of Tehran’s stockpile of the fissile material, which is estimated to be nearly enough to produce one nuclear bomb.
Iran, in return, will gain relief from Western economic sanctions that U.S. officials believe will provide between $6 billion and $7 billion in badly needed foreign exchange for Tehran over the next half-year.
The agreement reached in Geneva is an interim deal for about six months that will allow international powers to try to strike a permanent pact, an effort experts said would be the true test of Iran’s new government, headed by revitalization-minded President Hasan Rouhani.
Once again, the Iranians don’t have to destroy anything that will actually prevent them from making nuclear weapons.
The first-stage deal also takes no steps to force Iran to ship out or destroy the roughly 19,000 centrifuge machines it is amassed to produce nuclear fuel.
U.S. lawmakers and key American allies have said Iran will only abandon its nuclear program if international pressure is increased.
This is a terrible deal. In return for the lifting of sanctions, Iran gets to jump back into creating nukes at the drop of a hat. But hey, Obama gets to say he’s accomplished something. And John Kerry gets to use this in the primaries against Hillary. (Hey, I hope the Dems are stupid enough to put Kerry up. He’d be eminently defeatable.)
Elections have consequences, and over 80% of American Jews voted for this administration. Good work, guys. Obama just made the world a much more dangerous place for Israel.
I’ll let Jonathan Tobin have the last word.
By devoting so much effort to sell the world on the notion that Iran is moderating and wants to deal, the administration hasn’t just tried to create a constituency for engagement with Iran but has, in effect, normalized a rogue, anti-Semitic, terror-supporting regime that richly deserved the opprobrium that had been directed at it in the last decade. In doing so, they have not only handed Tehran an undeserved victory without getting anything in return. They have also rendered it even less likely that the international community will be able to muster the strength to restrain an Islamist government whose violent intent is not in doubt.
It’s not just Israel’s problem. If Tel Aviv is first on the Iranian target list, New York is the second. What part of “Death to America” chanted by Iranian crowds in front of the Fuhrer of the Islamic Republic do the Obama Administration’s clowns not understand?
The only thing now that will “persuade” the Iranian Ayatollahs to give up their nuclear ambitions is defeat in war.
Un-freaking-believable. The g-ddam Munich Pact had better justification than this. *WHY* did we even have to reach out to those a-holes running Iran? What do they have to offer us?
What makes it even worse is that sanctions finally had a chance of working. For a long time I feared that the only way to stop Iran was through a military strike. But the increase in energy production in the US (mostly due to fracking) has decreased their leverage and increased ours. We should have been increasing pressure on them but instead we have caved which of course we should *never* have done regardless. This can only come to a bad end.
All we need now is a “peace in our time” photo with Kerry shaking the Iranian grand puppet master’s hand.
The real dilemma is how does anyone stop North Korea from sending already built nukes to the Persians for badly needed cash?
I’ve read that The Wahhabist Entity funded Pakistan’s nuclear bomb project, with the agreement that they could buy bombs if they wanted to. So another possibility is the Wahhabis buying nukes from Pakistan. Egypt and Turkey will want nukes, just in case.
No matter what they said, all these countries could live with Israel’s nukes, because they knew Israel would not use them except in the last extremity, and they could avoid pushing Israel to that if they were smart. They have no reason to believe that the Ayatollahs, people who think it is their duty to throw the world into chaos in order to hasten the return of the 12th Imam, will be so restrained.
Obama may talk about eliminating nukes, but his diplomacy is setting up a nuclear arms race. Apparently he and Kerry (and Shrillary too) lack the wits to understand what they are doing. Can’t anybody in DC play this Great Game?
eh, i am recalling the 1980’s when Washington wished Iraq to win its war with Iran .. while Tel Aviv wished, um, Iraq *not* to win. Likewise, Mr Netanyahu sees the House of Saud as a .. provisional ally against Iran. But taking a *longer* view, i am not entirely displeased to see Riyadh c-ckblocked. in any case, Saudi Arabia needs Washington far more than Israel does / hell, the House of Saud doesn’t even trust its own people with all that high-dollar military hardware: much of it is under the control of Paki experts ..