===
For the sake of discussion, I will assume Obama is sincere about 'defeating' ISIS. If that is the case then he is operating on a different planet. He is assuming ISIS is a group driven by poverty when, in fact, they are driven by demoniacal attitudes. Obama assumes they are under employed when, in fact, they are gainfully employed and willingly engage in socially aberrant behaviour. Obama assumes their members are sensitive to negative publicity when, in fact, they not only thrive and benefit from it but their leadership uses it as a way of adding members.
Finally, Obama assumes ISIS leadership is amenable to engaging in rational discourse when, in fact, they have no desire of listening because they are winning and know the West is confused, disorganized, frightened and feckless.
Obama is approaching the ISIS threat as a naive academic. When a person breaks through your door with a gun it is idiotic to treat him as a guest, invite him to sit down for cookies and a glass of milk in order to talk him out of his misdeeds.
Consequently, I circle back to my original premise and doubt Obama is sincere.
Click on this for a little Wild Bill thinking:
===
It is evident Obama's deeds do not match his words. Therefore, it is reasonable for Netanyahu to have serious doubt about Obama's sincerity and intentions. This is the predicament Netanyahu faces in regard to Obama's previous soothing promises. Obama has proven he cannot be trusted because, at the very least, he gives the store away when he negotiates even if he means what he says.
It is difficult, perhaps, for those not of the Jewish faith, to comprehend the legitimate concerns of Jews and what Israel means both to their pride but also, and more importantly, to their security and survival. A world, without Israel, to Jews, makes them vulnerable. History has proven, time and again, we are expendable. We now know FDR did not lift a finger, when he had the chance, in the early stages of Hitler's perfidious acts and 'oven strategy.'.
Netanyahu is not acting beyond legitimate concerns . As his nation's leader he cannot avoid the issue of its protection and survival.
If Israel is destroyed rest assured the West and America will not be far behind. China, Russia and the Muslim world will come together for that purpose. In that I have no doubt. (See 1, 1a, 1b and 1c below.)
And now we have evidence of the Pollard fraud because "Cap" Weinberger had an animus towards Israel.. (See 1d below.)
Meanwhile, most Americans continue to have a favorable attitude towards Israel notwithstanding, the pounding Israel has received from the Obama administration. (See 1e below.)
===
Scott Walked, look behind you as you walk and gain momentum. The press and media are un- sheathing their knives. (See 2 below.)
===
Now for some humor:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------A little boy went up to his father and asked: "Dad, where did my intelligence come from?"The father replied. "Well, son, you must have got it from your mother, cause I still have mine."
________________________"Mr. Clark, I have reviewed this case very carefully," the Divorce Court Judge said, "And I've decided to give your wife $775 a week,""That's very fair, your honor," the husband said. "And every now and then I'll try to send her a few bucks myself."
________________________A doctor examining a woman who had been rushed to the Emergency Room, took the husband aside, and said, "I don't like the looks of your wife at all.""Me neither doc," said the husband. "But she's a great cook and really good with the kids."
Two Reasons Why It's So Hard To Solve a Redneck Murder:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1. The DNA all matches.
2. There are no dental records.
________________________A blonde calls Delta Airlines and asks, "Can you tell me how long it'll take to fly from San Francisco to New York City?"The agent replies, "Just a minute.""Thank you," the blonde says, and hangs up.
________________________Two Mexican detectives were investigating the murder of Juan Gonzalez."How was he killed?" asked one detective."With a golf gun," the other detective replied."A golf gun! What is a golf gun?""I don't know. But it sure made a hole in Juan."
________________________Moe: "My wife got me to believe in religion."Joe: "Really?"Moe: "Yeah. Until I married her I didn't believe in Hell."
________________________A man is recovering from surgery when the Surgical Nurse appears and asks him how he is feeling."I'm O. K. But I didn't like the four letter-words the doctor used in surgery," he answered."What did he say," asked the nurse."Oops!"
The graveside service just barely finished, when there was massive clap of thunder, followed by a tremendous bolt of lightning, accompanied by even more thunder rumbling in the distance...
===The little old man looked at the pastor and calmly said, "Well, she's there."
Dick
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1)THE U.S.-ISRAEL DIVIDE ON IRAN
Author: Dennis Ross
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at a conference, launching the Likud party's campaign in Russian, at Bar Ilan University near Tel Aviv February 9, 2014.
(Baz Ratner/Reuters)
The controversy over Republican House Speaker John Boehner’s invitation to Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint meeting of Congress has had the ironic effect of diverting attention from the very topic the Israeli prime minister wants to discuss: the problems with a potential deal on the Iranian nuclear program. Although everyone debates the propriety of the Israeli prime minister challenging President Obama’s policy in such a setting, the partisan nature of the invitation and the timing of the speech — just two weeks before an Israeli election — the substance of the issue has been pushed aside. Why is there such a divide between the United States’ and Israel’s positions, and can they be bridged?
There is no disguising the gap between the president and prime minister. Obama is clearly prepared to accept a deal that would limit the Iranian nuclear program for perhaps the next 15 years and in a way that ensures the Iranians would be a year away from being able to produce weapons-grade uranium. Iran, however, would not be required to dismantle any nuclear facilities or infrastructure — and, after the agreement expires, would be permitted to have an industrial-size nuclear program and be treated like any other party to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT).
In Netanyahu’s view, however, that means leaving Iran as a nuclear-threshold state. Though the prime minister’s public posture is that Iran must not be allowed any enrichment capacity and that its nuclear facilities should be dismantled, my conversations with Israelis suggest that they could, in fact, live with an agreement that permits Iran a small enrichment capability. Their view is that, in return for a rollback of sanctions, there must be a serious rollback of the Iranian nuclear program. By contrast, the deal reportedly under consideration would limit the Iranian nuclear program, not meaningfully diminish it, in return for a rollback of sanctions.
The Israelis argue that if Iran is permitted to have an industrial-size nuclear energy program, it would be able to become a nuclear weapons state at a time of its choosing. Indeed, the transparency or verification system needed to detect a so-called breakout by a small program is unlikely to work for a very large one. Olli Heinonen, a former official at the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is responsible for verification, has been outspoken on this point. Heinonen has emphasized that what might be effective for a program with 1,000 to 2,000 centrifuges will not work for one with tens of thousands of centrifuges unless new protocols are developed, access is redefined and additional inspectors are permitted.
Thus, at least in part, the Israeli fear is related to the difficulty of verifying that the Iranians are complying with the NPT once they have an industrial-size program. No doubt it is also driven by concerns about the will of the United States and other nations to prevent Iran from crossing the weapons threshold, particularly if they have accepted a deal in which Iran is permitted a large nuclear infrastructure. Could the Obama administration address those fears?
Yes, provided that the administration is prepared to take two steps.
First, it should ensure that the verification measures in the deal provide for “anywhere, anytime” access to all declared and undeclared facilities, and buttress these measures, which are in the additional protocol of the NPT, with new means to enable effective inspection of a large nuclear program. Since any deal with Iran would serve as a precedent, the United States’ five negotiating partners should support this.
Second, it should be prepared to spell out in advance the consequences for all classes of violations of the agreement. For the most egregious, indicating a dash toward weapons-grade production, the use of force should be the result. Such consequences would be far more credible if the administration worked them out with Congress and they were enshrined in legislation — and if those consequences, especially the use of force, were also applied to an Iranian move to develop nuclear weapons after the term of the agreement.
Incorporating these measures in legislation would send a clear signal and demonstrate that the president and Congress are unified on this issue. It would also serve as a deterrent to Iran and reassure the Israelis about the certainty of our action — removing a key source of their fear of the agreement.
The administration, too, should find this approach acceptable. It would not jeopardize current diplomacy, it would give the administration a way to cooperate with Congress and it would give those on the Hill an outlet for their desire to have an imprint on the deal. And it would be consistent with the core of the administration’s argument: The agreement would limit the Iranian program and prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons — and we would be able to deter the Iranians even after the 15-year period of the deal. It just might also bridge the gap between Obama and Netanyahu.
Dennis Ross is a writer, a counselor and fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, was a special assistant to President Obama from 2009 to 2011.
1a) Obama the Impotent, the Infant, the Fool
We look at the Middle East, and we can see that the mass failures in Obama’s engagement in the region are caused by the three characteristics that most precisely describe the president. Invariably, Barack Obama plays one of three roles when formulating policy or engaging in diplomacy throughout the Middle East. He is either: Obama the Impotent, Obama the Infant, or Obama the Fool.
In Saudi Arabia, the new monarch King Salman contemplates the future of a kingdom tied together through the intricacies of baksheesh bribery and oil-funded entitlements. The irony of funding terrorists abroad while combating them in one’s own backyard has perhaps dawned on Salman, as he consults with Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Supreme Commander of the United Arab Emirates. Now, for the first time, the King and his consults, the Crown Prince and myriad other Sunni royalty must not discount the option of tacit cooperation with Israel. Sure, it’s fun to rail against Zionists and their lapdogs in world finance and Hollywood, but the Saudis know as well as anyone that a Shia minority with the power of a nuclear bomb is a thousand times the threat Israel would ever be.
In Libya, Coptic Christians in orange jumpsuits, not proper prisoners despite the garb, go on a beachside stroll. Behind them are stateless soldiers, men who kill not in the name of a state but in the name of a religion, a religion whose name may not pass over the lips of Western leaders, leaders whose constraints are those manufactured by a frenzy of political correctness that mounts in growing tidal waves, daily, monthly, yearly. The last words that these Christian men utter are “Ya Rabbi Yesou”, or “My Lord Jesus” in English. Then, the barbarians of ISIS decapitate them in front of their in-house film crew.
As Pope Tawadros, leader of the Coptic church, and Pope Francis, the Catholic pontiff of one billion souls, both pray for the slain, the ISIS butchering is digitally immortalized. The title of ISIS’s short film is “A Message Signed With Blood to the Nation of the Cross”, and according to ISIS its location is “The Coast of Wilayat Tarabulus by the Mediterranean Sea.” Its message to Christians worldwide isn’t ambiguous. It is intended for mature audiences.
No, no, this isn’t Islam, “and we are not at war with Islam” the Infant harps. Obama plugs his ears and pronounces with a tone of authority that doesn’t quite square with his ignorance in stating that “we are at war with people who have perverted Islam.” Very bold words for someone who is not an Islamic scholar. Very bold words in the face of the millions who openly advocate the more radical interpretations of Wahhabist and Salafist clerics, and the imams of their communities who crowd out moderates with implicit and explicit threats of violence. More than a billion and a half Muslims, a significant percentage of which willingly support the blood cult of ISIS, feverish proponents of sharia and the reconquering of the lost lands of the caliphate, and none of them are Muslims? Very bold words indeed.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif sits in a room lined with bookshelves of Islamic texts along with his boss Ayatollah Ali Khameini. They laugh as Zarif recalls his latest humiliation of John Kerry, of his manhandling of the Secretary of State from the world’s single Great Power, of his expert use of taqiyya -- the Shia precept of justifiable deceit in the face of peril -- in keeping the Americans at the negotiating table. Zarif and Khameini double over in laughter after watching our State of the Union Address, because they could see Obama the Fool at his very best. The Ayatollah may well have busted his guts guffawing when he heard President Obama insist that his “…diplomacy is at work with respect to Iran, where, for the first time in a decade, we’ve halted the progress of its nuclear program and reduced its stockpile of nuclear material.”
The reality is that Ayatollah Khamenei, Zarif, even Kerry and Obama know the truth about how inconsequential this “reduction” really is. They know that even though the interim agreement brokered in Vienna shuts down centrifuges at Natanz, Iranian scientists are developing the IR-8 centrifuge, which will be even faster and more efficient in forwarding progress towards a nuclear bomb. In Arak, the Iranians continue to buy materials for their nuclear reactors, all while refusing the release of photographic and video documentation of their nuclear facilities. Wow, what a deal.
Obama the Impotent says to the American public that he is an alchemist, taking an impossible scenario and manipulating it to conform to his desires, changing iron ore into sparkling, shimmering gold. Really, any impartial observer can see that he’s instead cultivating a nice, fat field of horse manure. The core problem that the President has is that foreign policy isn’t a high gloss campaign commercial, or a speech given in front of a teleprompter, and Middle Eastern despots aren’t his media cheerleaders, or vapid college kids that can be persuaded with a bumper sticker and a monosyllabic slogan like “hope” or “change” that means absolutely nothing.
At home, in the Oval Office, a seat is occupied not by a leader, but by a man who should have never ascended beyond the harmless provincial position of the Illinois State Senate. President Obama is certainly giving thought to his next book deal, or speaking to a Hollywood producer about a movie option, or possibly with Lorne Michaels about appearing in a sketch on Saturday Night Live, or whatever the latest debasement of the formerly honored office of the Presidency is this week.
What will the world think of Obama when he leaves office? What will they think after eight years of leading from behind? If I had to venture a guess, they’ll think the same of him on January 17th 2017 as they do right now: not very much. Across the globe, prime ministers and potentates rightfully doubt the seriousness of a leader who hits 18 rounds at the greens after James Foley, an American, was decapitated by a legion of benighted butchers who believe that they are doing the work of Allah. Obama’s final term has been unique in its unwitting combination of incompetence and idiocy.
What does the President imagine his personal legend will be? Or perhaps it doesn’t much matter anymore. He has always been concerned primarily with his legacy as he himself envisions it -- a fanciful endeavor into self-indulgent denial. Corpses pile on and the contours of history, frayed nerves that they are, exposed and vulnerable, are quite sensitive to the damage Obama has done. Even after the adoring chorus of press adulation dies down to a whisper, as the present becomes the past, proper historians will always remember the current president as Obama the Impotent, the Infant, the Fool.
President Obama is fond of invoking the term “narrative,” so it’s worth considering several instances in which he invokes exactly the wrong narrative–the wrong frame–around events.
The most obvious is the president’s repeated insistence that militant Islam is utterly disconnected from the Islamic faith. As this much-discussed essay in the Atlantic points out:
Many mainstream Muslim organizations have gone so far as to say the Islamic State is, in fact, un-Islamic. It is, of course, reassuring to know that the vast majority of Muslims have zero interest in replacing Hollywood movies with public executions as evening entertainment. But Muslims who call the Islamic State un-Islamic are typically, as the Princeton scholar Bernard Haykel, the leading expert on the group’s theology, told me, “embarrassed and politically correct, with a cotton-candy view of their own religion” that neglects “what their religion has historically and legally required.” Many denials of the Islamic State’s religious nature, he said, are rooted in an “interfaith-Christian-nonsense tradition.”
The author, Graeme Wood, adds this:
According to Haykel, the ranks of the Islamic State are deeply infused with religious vigor. Koranic quotations are ubiquitous. “Even the foot soldiers spout this stuff constantly,” Haykel said. “They mug for their cameras and repeat their basic doctrines in formulaic fashion, and they do it all the time.” He regards the claim that the Islamic State has distorted the texts of Islam as preposterous, sustainable only through willful ignorance. “People want to absolve Islam,” he said. “It’s this ‘Islam is a religion of peace’ mantra. As if there is such a thing as ‘Islam’! It’s what Muslims do, and how they interpret their texts.” Those texts are shared by all Sunni Muslims, not just the Islamic State. “And these guys have just as much legitimacy as anyone else.”
President Obama continues to insist the opposite, pretending that what is true is false, and even suggesting those who are speaking the truth are actually endangering the lives of innocent people. This makes Mr. Obama’s comments offensive as well as ignorant.
But that hardly exhausts the examples of false narratives employed by the president. Asthis exchange between Fox’s Ed Henry and White House press secretary Josh Earnest demonstrates, in its statement the White House avoided saying that the 21 Egyptian Christians who were beheaded by members of ISIS were Christian, even though that was the reason they were beheaded. At the same time the president suggested that the murder of three Muslim students at the University of North Carolina was because they were Muslim, when in fact that wasn’t by any means clear when the White House issued its statement. (The shooting appears to have involved a long-standing dispute over parking.) So when Christian faith is a factor in a massacre, it’s denied, and when there’s no evidence that the Islamic faith was a factor in a killing, it’s nevertheless asserted.
And then there was the shooting in Ferguson, Missouri, in which the president and his attorney general constantly spoke about the shooting of Michael Brown by Officer Darren Wilson as if race was a factor in the shooting. That assertion is fiction. It was an invention, just as it was an invention to suggest, as the president did back in 2009, that the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. by Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley was racially motivated.
Here, then, are three separate examples of the president imposing a false narrative on events. (I could cite many others.) Which makes Mr. Obama a truly post-modern president, in which there is no objective truth but simply narrative. Mr. Obama doesn’t just distort the facts; he inverts them. He makes things up as he goes along. This kind of thing isn’t unusual to find in the academy. But to see a president and his aides so thoroughly deconstruct truth is quite rare, and evidence of a stunningly rigid and dogmatic mind.
The sheer audacity of Mr. Obama’s multi-pronged assault on truth is one of the more troubling aspects of his deeply troubling presidency.
1c) SEVEN PROBLEMS WITH JOHN KERRY'S IRANIAN NUCLEAR CLOCK
Author: Gary C . Gambill
According to Secretary of State John Kerry, Iran's “breakout time” will be five times longer under a prospective agreement.
US Secretary of State John Kerry has repeatedly pledged that the prospective nuclear agreement being hammered out between the P5+1 world powers and Iran will extend the Islamic Republic's “breakout time” – how quickly it can produce sufficient fissile material for an atomic bomb should it make a rush to build one – from “about two months” to “a minimum of a year.”[1] While U.S. officials have been tight-lipped about details of the talks, this seemingly tangible metric is clearly going to be the big selling point when Kerry seeks to win support for an agreement from a skeptical Congress.
Kerry gets his numbers by calculating how long it would take Iran to produce a bomb's worth (around 25 kg) of weapons grade uranium (WGU) given the number and types of centrifuges it currently has installed (18,458 first generation IR-1s and 1008 IR-2s) and operating (around 10,180 IR-1s) at its two enrichment plants,[2] and the amount of under 5% low enriched uranium (LEU) it has on hand to use as feed stock. Cap these variables at whatever levels are needed to lift the other side of the equation to a year, put in place an augmented inspections regime to make sure Iran isn't cheating, and voila … ten months back on the clock.
Well, not exactly. A multitude of “ifs”, “ands”, and “buts” render Kerry's pledge all but meaningless.
There is No Clock
While nominal breakout time,[3] a simple function of overall enrichment capacity and available feed stock, is convenient shorthand for a country's ability to produce a weapon, it isn't a meaningful threshold in a real-world breakout attempt. Producing one bomb's worth of WGU – what the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) terms a significant quantity (SQ)[4] – wouldn't be much of an achievement, as the Iranians can't put it on a warhead (assuming they've designed one) without first conducting a nuclear test (lest no one believe they've split the atom), while carrying out a test without having stockpiled enough material for at least one weapon would announce their aggressive intentions to the world without simultaneously acquiring a nuclear deterrent. To be sure, an Iranian dash to produce one SQ of WGU would be a proliferation threat, but that doesn't mean it would make sense for the Iranians (unless their objective is to deliberately provoke military intervention).
Iran's effective breakout time[5] – to enrich enough WGU to be reasonably certain of ending up with a deployable nuke – depends on how certain the Iranians want to be.
Two bomb-loads of WGU would be sufficient to acquire a modicum of nuclear deterrence only if the test is successful, but that's hardly a sure thing (North Korea had two failed tests in a row, albeit with plutonium bombs). Even three would be a crapshoot given Iran's poor track record of getting things right the first time around in its nuclear program.
This is an important distinction because the Obama administration's public rationale for accepting an inferior deal feeds off of the common misconception that Iran is eight weeks away from a nuclear weapon (almost anything looks better than that). The Iranians are portrayed as too close to the finish line to be pushed or prodded most of the way back. Press too hard, Kerry has suggested, and Iran might “rush towards a nuclear weapon.”[6] In fact, it's not too late for the international community to deny Iran a viable chance of succeeding in a future breakout attempt.
Untested “Disablement”
Kerry's post-agreement breakout time calculations assume that Iran does not bring more centrifuges into operation for a whole year after kicking out inspectors and beginning its sprint for a nuke. Dismantling the large majority of Iranian centrifuges that fall outside of the agreed-upon quota could ensure this, but Iran has long insisted that it will never destroy any of them.
A bank of centrifuges at Natanz
A bank of centrifuges at Natanz
Instead, the White House is proposing that excess centrifuges and associated equipment merely be disconnected, removed to IAEA-monitored storage offsite, and disabled in some way that cannot be quickly reversed (but without removing components that would render them permanently inoperable).[7]
Although U.S. nuclear scientists are said to have studied a range of technical measures designed to make the process of reconnecting centrifuge cascades and piping more time-consuming, “disablement” is not an exact science. The only real-world application of such measures thus far was in North Korea, which “was able to reverse many of these steps faster than expected,” according to the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS).[8] In the case of Iran, analysts at ISIS were unable to identify even a hypothetical disablement process that would take more than six months to reverse.[9] Considering that the Iranians would be sure to immediately begin training personnel to reverse the disablement steps, there's little reason to be confident that such technical speed bumps can prevent a ramp up of Iranian enrichment capacity for an entire year if excess centrifuges are left intact.
Unknown Inventories
Even a perfectly functioning disablement regime won't suffice unless the international community has an accurate count of Iran's centrifuges, particularly those it possesses beyond the 19,466 installed at its Natanz and Fordow enrichment plants. The latter include around a thousand, non-operating IR-2m centrifuges at Natanz, which have an average enrichment output three to five times greater than the IR-1.[10] Olli Heinonen, the former deputy chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), recently said that Iran could have thousands of additional IR-2m centrifuges, or the components for assembling them, stored outside of these declared facilities.[11]
As Lee Smith has warned,[12] there's little indication that the Obama administration is demanding the kind of invasive inspection regime that would be needed to verify Iran has no appreciable stockpile of undeclared centrifuges. Given the administration's unwillingness to demand full disclosure of past nuclear weapons research,[13] this is unlikely to change.
Limitations of an LEU Cap
Although the Obama administration initially proposed a limit of 1,500 IR-1 centrifuges,[14] it is widely reported to have agreed to let Iran operate somewhere in the neighborhood of 4,000 to 6,500 IR-1 centrifuges under the terms of a prospective agreement, and may yet settle for an even higher number.[15] There are only two ways to produce a nominal breakout time of one year with this many centrifuges running.
The first is to reduce the amount of LEU the Iranians can accumulate at any one time. LEU, as Frank von Hippel and Alex Glaser put it, is essentially “stored enrichment work.”[16] Reducing LEU supplies below the roughly 1,000 kg needed to produce one SQ would lengthen nominal breakout time by forcing the Iranians to enrich some quantity of natural uranium all the way up to WGU. According to ISIS calculations, for example, 6,000 IR-1 centrifuges and 500 kg of LEU would correspond to a one-year breakout time.
U.S. officials have proposed achieving this by requiring Iran to either convert the LEU normally produced by its centrifuges into an oxide form (unlikely, as this can be reversed in a matter of months) or have it shipped to Russia,[17] in exchange for specialized fuel rods for its Bushehr power plant that cannot easily be weaponized.[18]
The problem with a many-centrifuges-little-LEU cap is that it requires Iran to continuously surrender or reprocess material it already possesses for its extended breakout time to remain constant. But suppose it simply stopped doing this? If the Iranians were going to attempt a breakout, they would likely begin by “feigning problems in the conversion plant or delays in transporting” the LEU, notes ISIS President David Albright.[19] By the time it would be unmistakably clear to the outside world that a breakout was underway, they would have substantially exceeded whatever LEU cap is established. With a few-centrifuges cap, a “creepout” is impossible, as Iran would have to install more centrifuges to narrow its breakout time, not merely fake an industrial accident.
The Iranians could also stop surrendering LEU, while otherwise abiding by a prospective agreement, as a means of wresting additional concessions from the West, calculating that no one will start a war in response to inaction.
Moreover, having a larger number of centrifuges in operation would make it easier for Iran to build centrifuges in secret and hide illicit procurements for a covert facility,[20] particularly if the Obama administration drops the longstanding P5+1 demand for substantial curbs on centrifuge research and development. Iran has built and tested prototypes of advanced centrifuges with even higher enrichment capacities than the IR-2, most notably the IR-8, with an annual SWU capacity anywhere from seven to 16 times that of the IR-1.[21] Because far fewer are required to produce a given output, advanced centrifuges allow for the construction of smaller, harder-to-detect clandestine enrichment facilities.
Limitations of an SWU Cap
Solid uranium oxide concentrate, also known as yellowcake, is converted to uranium hexafluoride gas at Iran's Isfahan plant.
Unfortunately for the Obama administration, the Iranians have insisted on keeping such a high number of centrifuges in operation that a practical LEU cap alone can't extend Iran's nominal breakout time to a year. In recent months, U.S. officials have warmed to an Iranian proposal to instead cap the net output of its centrifuges, measured in separative work units (SWU). Several prominent NGOs endorsed an SWU cap last year, including the Arms Control Association and the International Crisis Group.[22]
Unfortunately for the Obama administration, the Iranians have insisted on keeping such a high number of centrifuges in operation that a practical LEU cap alone can't extend Iran's nominal breakout time to a year. In recent months, U.S. officials have warmed to an Iranian proposal to instead cap the net output of its centrifuges, measured in separative work units (SWU). Several prominent NGOs endorsed an SWU cap last year, including the Arms Control Association and the International Crisis Group.[22]
The Iranians initially proposed that the SWU cap be enforced by reducing the rate of spin on the centrifuges. But this process can be quickly reversed.[23]
US officials have instead proposed that the SWU cap be enforced by limiting the amount of uranium hexafluoride (UF6) gas that is fed into the centrifuges.[24] But this begs the question of how quickly Iran can ramp up production of UF6 once it begins a breakout, and what new, untested disablement regime will be needed to slow this process. Elaborate mechanisms to limit gas supplies simply cannot provide the same degree of confidence as dismantling the centrifuges they feed into.
Wrong Enrichment Plant
However much the limited centrifuge, LEU, and SWU caps the Obama administration has in mind may extend Iran's nominal breakout time, this figure won't mean much in a contested breakout. Iran isn't likely to get very far trying to produce fissile material for a bomb at its main Natanz enrichment facility, where all post-agreement enrichment is to be carried out – the site is too vulnerable to outside air strikes that would likely follow such brazen defiance of the international community.[25]
A contested breakout can only succeed at Iran's smaller Fordow plant, which is buried sufficiently deep underground to likely survive Israeli, perhaps even American, air strikes. This route to the bomb will take longer to achieve than an uncontested breakout at Natanz. Since Iran has pledged to discontinue industrial enrichment at Fordow once an agreement is signed, it will first have to get centrifuges back up and running, and even then its output will be a fraction that of Natanz.
A bird's eye view of Iran's Fordow enrichment facility
A bird's eye view of Iran's Fordow enrichment facility
According to Albright, a full complement of 3,000 IR-1 centrifuges at Fordow would take about a year to produce a bomb's worth of WGU using only natural uranium, and “significantly” less if a substantial quantity of LEU is available (which, as underscored above, will likely be the case) or if more advanced centrifuges are available for installation (ditto).[26] But time doesn't matter as much when the centrifuges are spinning deep underground.
The more interesting question is how long it takes to restart and ramp up enrichment at Fordow – or at least move centrifuges and other vital equipment inside the subterranean fortress. That is when the process is most vulnerable to outside disruption.
Naturally, the Iranians are adamant that this timeline be as short as possible. They have refused to demolish, strip down, or even close the Fordow bunker, insisting that it remain in operation as “research and development and back-up site for Natanz.”[27] After initially insisting that Fordow be shut down completely, the Obama administration has agreed that Iran will merely be required to suspend enrichment and accept unspecified provisions that “constrain the ability to quickly resume enrichment there,” in the words of one senior American official.[28]
But the timeline for stage one of a Fordow-centered breakout is difficult to quantify, let alone delimit, reflecting such myriad factors as the number and competency of Iranian scientists and technicians, how much they've drilled, the availability of relevant equipment, etc. – all of which are sure to improve for Iran in the years ahead.
Moreover, Iranian actions during the vulnerable stage of a Fordow breakout aren't likely to be regarded as a clear casus belli by the international community. While this path to the bomb can be readily obstructed when centrifuges are being moved back into the facility, simply moving equipment around in violation of treaty isn't likely to trigger decisive external military intervention. Just to be sure, Iranian clerics could simultaneously summon thousands of women and children to the site to act as human shields. Named after a nearby village known for having the largest martyrdom rate during the Iran-Iraq war,[29] Fordow would be ideally suited for such a stunt.
Although details concerning the status of Fordow remain unresolved,[30] it's clear that the facility will remain operational under a prospective agreement, subject to untested technical provisions to obstruct the rapid resumption of industrial enrichment, and its status as a symbol of Iranian resistance thus formally consecrated.
Time Isn't Everything
Finally, Kerry's breakout time argument – and the Obama administration's Iran counter-proliferation policy as a whole – is predicated on the widespread, but hardly self-evident, assumption that having as much time as possible to stop a future breakout in progress is the touchstone of a “good” agreement.
Kerry may be right that, all else being equal, more “time to act” if Iran reneges and starts racing to enrich WGU is better than less.[31] But how much better? The U.S. and/or Israel won't need more than a few weeks to flatten Iran's enrichment facilities as best they can if it comes to that.
Of course, military intervention isn't certain to succeed. The problem with a short breakout time, according to the prevailing conventional wisdom, is that it doesn't allow for a peaceful, negotiated restoration of the status quo ante (which everyone agrees is a more reliable fix than bunker busters). “If Iran were to make the decision to make a weapon, military intervention would be the only available response,” explains Albright.[32]
Fair enough. But why should we expect a diplomatic resolution to be possible in the midst of a breakout attempt? The assumption that Tehran can be made to have second thoughts after beginning a headlong sprint for the bomb flies in the face of everything we know about the Iranian regime – a product, perhaps, of anti-proliferation specialists accustomed to dealing with mercurial dictators like Moammar Qaddafi and Kim Jong-il.
The challenge is giving the Iranians second thoughts before they begin a breakout. Might not the perception that prompt military intervention will be the only response available to Washington do more to deter an Iranian breakout attempt than the expectation that the international community will have all the time in the world deliberating how to respond and bargaining for Iranian concessions?
Conclusion
Although Kerry has stopped publicly promising a one-year breakout time since negotiators failed to reach an agreement before their self appointed deadline in November, by all accounts it remains a key focus of the U.S.-led negotiating team.[33]
Why this fixation with a number that doesn't mean anything? Because a one-year nominal breakout time “is what they need to have in order to sell the deal to Congress and U.S. allies,” according to Gary Samore, White House Coordinator for Arms Control and Weapons of Mass Destruction during Obama's first term.[34] At this stage in the game, the Obama administration's red lines in the negotiations have more to do with politics at home than with preventing the Islamic Republic from going nuclear.
Although the administration's efforts to frame the Iran nuclear debate as foremost a question of how far from the “finish line” Iran is and will be under a prospective nuclear agreement have been fairly successful thus far (critics of its Iran posture who complain that a year is not enough unwittingly play along), the White House is giving short shrift to a host of other factors critical to thwarting Iran's nuclear ambitions, such as the status of an underground enrichment bunker purpose-built for a contested breakout, the ability of inspectors to fully account for Iranian inventories, and curbs on research and development. At the end of the day, neither Congress nor American allies are likely to be very impressed when the particulars of the impending nuclear accord become known.
Gary C. Gambill is a frequent contributor to The National Post, FPRI E-Notes, The Jerusalem Post, Foreign Policy, and The National Interest. He is a Shillman-Ginsburg fellow at the Middle East Forum and was formerly editor of Middle East Intelligence Bulletin andMideast Monitor.
[1] “U.S. Lays Out Limits It Seeks in Iran Nuclear Talks,” The New York Times, November 24, 2014.
[2] According to a September 2014 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report, Iran presently has 15,420 IR-1 centrifuges and 1008 IR-2 centrifuges installed at Natanz; 328 centrifuges of different types at the aboveground Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant (PFEP) attached to Natanz; and 2,710 IR-1 centrifuges installed at Fordow. Of the IR-1s currently in operation, 9,156 are at Natanz, 328 at PFEP, and 696 at Fordow. See “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and relevant provisions of Security Council resolutions in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), September 5, 2014.
[3] The term “nominal breakout time” was first widely used in this context in “Iran Nuclear Talks: The Fog Recedes,” The International Crisis Group, December 10, 2014.
[4] The IAEA defines significant quantity (SQ) as “the approximate amount of nuclear material for which the possibility of manufacturing a nuclear explosive device cannot be excluded.” IAEA Safeguards Glossary, 2001 Edition, IAEA.
[5] I borrow (but slightly modify) this term from Greg Thielmann and Robert Wright. See Greg Thielmann and Robert Wright, “The Trouble With 'Breakout Capacity',” Slate, June 18, 2014. Thielmann and Wright define effective breakout capacity as “the time it takes to produce a deliverable weapon,” including construction of non-fissile bomb components and delivery vehicle.
[6] “Kerry's Interview on Iran Pact with CNN's Candy Crowley,” U.S. Department of State, November 24, 2013. Prior to the Obama administration's diplomatic outreach to Tehran in 2013, “Iran's nuclear program was rushing full speed toward larger stockpiles, greater uranium enrichment capacity, the production of weapons grade plutonium, and ever shorter breakout time,” Kerry told reporters in Vienna in November 2014. John Kerry Solo Press Availability in Vienna, Austria, U.S. Department of State, November 24, 2014.
[7] The Iranians feel that the removal from their possession of any vital component they cannot readily replace constitutes destruction of the centrifuge. “U.S. Hopes Face-Saving Plan Offers a Path to a Nuclear Pact With Iran,” The New York Times, September 19, 2014.
[8] David Albright, Olli Heinonen, and Andrea Stricker, “Five Compromises to Avoid in a Comprehensive Agreement with Iran,” ISIS, June 3, 2014.
[9] David Albright, Testimony before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, December 3, 2014.
[10] David Albright and Christina Walrond, “Iran's Advanced Centrifuges,” ISIS, October 18, 2011. Ariane Tabatabai, “Hitting the sweet spot: How many Iranian centrifuges?,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, October 27, 2014.
[11] “Iran's Nuclear Threat is Five Times Bigger, Warns Ex-IAEA Chief,” International Business Times, November 9, 2014.
[12] “If the IAEA investigators can't get in to count and catalog what Iran has pre-deal, post-deal inspections are a waste of time, and any agreement coming out of Geneva will not be worth the paper it's printed on,” he writes. See Lee Smith, “Understanding the P5+1 Nuclear Negotiations With Iran: The Verification Regime,” The Weekly Standard, November 13, 2014.
[13] See Gary C. Gambill, “A Limited Disclosure Nuclear Agreement with Iran: Promise or Peril?” Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI), June 2014.
[14] “U.S. Lays Out Limits It Seeks in Iran Nuclear Talks,” The New York Times, November 24, 2014.
[15] “Report says U.S. may OK more centrifuges in Iran nuclear talks,” The Los Angeles Times, October 20, 2014. Ariane Tabatabai, “Hitting the sweet spot: How many Iranian centrifuges?” Bulletin of the Atomic Sciences, October 27, 2014. Arash Karami, “Iran official: US proposals in Oman 'back to zero',” Al-Monitor, November 16, 2014. “Israel: US deal will leave Iran with 6,500 centrifuges spinning, months from a bomb,” The Times of Israel, January 31, 2015 (citing Israeli officials who spoke anonymously to Israel's Channel 10 TV news).
[16] Frank von Hippel and Alex Glaser, “The potential value of stricter limits on Iran's stockpile of low-enriched UF6,” Program on Science and Global Security, Princeton University, September 25, 2014.
[17] “Iran and US tentatively agree on formula to reduce nuclear programme,” The Associated Press, January 2, 2015.
[18] “Role for Russia Gives Iran Talks a Possible Boost,” The New York Times, November 3, 2014.
[19] David Albright, Olli Heinonen, and Andrea Stricker, “Five Compromises to Avoid in a Comprehensive Agreement with Iran,” ISIS, June 3, 2014.
[20] David Albright, Olli Heinonen, and Andrea Stricker, “The Six's' Guiding Principles in Negotiating with Iran,” ISIS, July 22, 2014.
[21] David Albright, “Technical Note: Making Sense out of the IR-8 Centrifuge,” ISIS, September 23, 2014. http://isis-online.org/isis-reports/detail/technical-note-making-sense-o…
[22] See “Solving the Iranian Nuclear Puzzle: Toward a Realistic and Effective Comprehensive Nuclear Agreement,” The Arms Control Association, June 2014.
“Iran and the P5+1: Getting to 'Yes',” The International Crisis Group, August 27, 2014, pp. 13-15.
[23] Iran would “remain a flip of the switch away from sprinting for the bomb,” according to a report by the Gemunder Center Iran Task Force of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA). See “Separative Work Units (SWU) and a Final Deal with Iran,” Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), September 22, 2014. Robert Joseph, former undersecretary of state for arms control and international security under George W. Bush, notes that such an arrangement “would permit Tehran to maintain a reserve capacity to enrich uranium far in excess of that suggested by the SWU allowance.” Robert Joseph, “The Path Ahead for a Nuclear Iran,” National Review Online, August 7, 2014.
[24] “AP exclusive: US, Iran discussing nuclear talks compromise,” The Associated Press, February 3, 2015.
[25] “Up in the air,” The Economist, February 25, 2012.
[26] David Albright and Paul Brannan, “Critique of Recent Bulletin of Atomic Scientists article on the Fordow Enrichment Plant,” ISIS, November 30, 2009. When Fordow's existence became public in 2009, administration officials told a White House press briefing that Fordow could produce “enough for a bomb or two a year.” Press Briefing, The White House, September 25, 2009. Ivan Oelrich and Ivanka Barzashka of the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) estimated in late 2009 that it would take 3,000 IR-1 centrifuges four years to produce sufficient WGU for a weapon using natural uranium. However, this estimate was based on a calculation of the IR-1's effective separative capacity to be only about 0.44 SWU per year. See Ivan Oelrich and Ivanka Barzashka, “A technical evaluation of the Fordow fuel enrichment plant,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, November 23, 2009. Subsequent studies have shown the IR-1 centrifuges at Fordow to average about 0.75 SWU per year. See David Albright, Christina Walrond, and Andrea Stricker, “ISIS Analysis of IAEA Iran Safeguards Report,” ISIS, February 20, 2014. Robert J. Goldston calculates that Fordow would take 2 years to produce one SQ, though he assumes an SQ for Iran's purposes to be higher than Albright does – around 1,300 kg. Robert J. Goldston, “Negotiating with Iran: Breakout and sneakout,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, February 10, 2015.
[27] “Iran says offers ways to ease impasse over underground nuclear plant,” Reuters, July 9, 2014.
[28] Another official said that these conditions include dismantling the system that feeds LEU into the facility's centrifuges, which the officials said would take weeks or months to rebuild. See “As Negotiators Ease Demands on Iran, More Nuclear Talks Are Set,” The New York Times, February 27, 2013.
[29] Ali Hashem, “In Iran, Fordow Nuclear Plant Virtually Sacred Ground,” Al-Monitor, September 19, 2013.
[30] “Iran, 6 Powers Move Closer to Nuclear Talks Deal,” The Associated Press, January 2, 2015.
[31] “President Obama, Secretary Kerry and Secretary Lew Underscore and Reaffirm the Strength of the U.S.-Israel Relationship,” The White House, March 6, 2014.
[32] David Albright, Testimony before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, December 3, 2014.
[33] Numerous mainstream media reports indicate this. See “Have the Iran Nuclear Talks Reached an Impasse?” The Wall Street Journal, February 12. 2015. According to the International Crisis Group, which interviewed numerous American and European officials, and a one-year nominal breakout time remains a “red line” of the P5+1. “Iran Nuclear Talks: The Fog Recedes,” The International Crisis Group, December 10, 2014, p. 4.
[34] “U.S. Lays Out Limits It Seeks in Iran Nuclear Talks,” The New York Times, November 24, 2014.
[2] According to a September 2014 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report, Iran presently has 15,420 IR-1 centrifuges and 1008 IR-2 centrifuges installed at Natanz; 328 centrifuges of different types at the aboveground Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant (PFEP) attached to Natanz; and 2,710 IR-1 centrifuges installed at Fordow. Of the IR-1s currently in operation, 9,156 are at Natanz, 328 at PFEP, and 696 at Fordow. See “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and relevant provisions of Security Council resolutions in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), September 5, 2014.
[3] The term “nominal breakout time” was first widely used in this context in “Iran Nuclear Talks: The Fog Recedes,” The International Crisis Group, December 10, 2014.
[4] The IAEA defines significant quantity (SQ) as “the approximate amount of nuclear material for which the possibility of manufacturing a nuclear explosive device cannot be excluded.” IAEA Safeguards Glossary, 2001 Edition, IAEA.
[5] I borrow (but slightly modify) this term from Greg Thielmann and Robert Wright. See Greg Thielmann and Robert Wright, “The Trouble With 'Breakout Capacity',” Slate, June 18, 2014. Thielmann and Wright define effective breakout capacity as “the time it takes to produce a deliverable weapon,” including construction of non-fissile bomb components and delivery vehicle.
[6] “Kerry's Interview on Iran Pact with CNN's Candy Crowley,” U.S. Department of State, November 24, 2013. Prior to the Obama administration's diplomatic outreach to Tehran in 2013, “Iran's nuclear program was rushing full speed toward larger stockpiles, greater uranium enrichment capacity, the production of weapons grade plutonium, and ever shorter breakout time,” Kerry told reporters in Vienna in November 2014. John Kerry Solo Press Availability in Vienna, Austria, U.S. Department of State, November 24, 2014.
[7] The Iranians feel that the removal from their possession of any vital component they cannot readily replace constitutes destruction of the centrifuge. “U.S. Hopes Face-Saving Plan Offers a Path to a Nuclear Pact With Iran,” The New York Times, September 19, 2014.
[8] David Albright, Olli Heinonen, and Andrea Stricker, “Five Compromises to Avoid in a Comprehensive Agreement with Iran,” ISIS, June 3, 2014.
[9] David Albright, Testimony before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, December 3, 2014.
[10] David Albright and Christina Walrond, “Iran's Advanced Centrifuges,” ISIS, October 18, 2011. Ariane Tabatabai, “Hitting the sweet spot: How many Iranian centrifuges?,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, October 27, 2014.
[11] “Iran's Nuclear Threat is Five Times Bigger, Warns Ex-IAEA Chief,” International Business Times, November 9, 2014.
[12] “If the IAEA investigators can't get in to count and catalog what Iran has pre-deal, post-deal inspections are a waste of time, and any agreement coming out of Geneva will not be worth the paper it's printed on,” he writes. See Lee Smith, “Understanding the P5+1 Nuclear Negotiations With Iran: The Verification Regime,” The Weekly Standard, November 13, 2014.
[13] See Gary C. Gambill, “A Limited Disclosure Nuclear Agreement with Iran: Promise or Peril?” Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI), June 2014.
[14] “U.S. Lays Out Limits It Seeks in Iran Nuclear Talks,” The New York Times, November 24, 2014.
[15] “Report says U.S. may OK more centrifuges in Iran nuclear talks,” The Los Angeles Times, October 20, 2014. Ariane Tabatabai, “Hitting the sweet spot: How many Iranian centrifuges?” Bulletin of the Atomic Sciences, October 27, 2014. Arash Karami, “Iran official: US proposals in Oman 'back to zero',” Al-Monitor, November 16, 2014. “Israel: US deal will leave Iran with 6,500 centrifuges spinning, months from a bomb,” The Times of Israel, January 31, 2015 (citing Israeli officials who spoke anonymously to Israel's Channel 10 TV news).
[16] Frank von Hippel and Alex Glaser, “The potential value of stricter limits on Iran's stockpile of low-enriched UF6,” Program on Science and Global Security, Princeton University, September 25, 2014.
[17] “Iran and US tentatively agree on formula to reduce nuclear programme,” The Associated Press, January 2, 2015.
[18] “Role for Russia Gives Iran Talks a Possible Boost,” The New York Times, November 3, 2014.
[19] David Albright, Olli Heinonen, and Andrea Stricker, “Five Compromises to Avoid in a Comprehensive Agreement with Iran,” ISIS, June 3, 2014.
[20] David Albright, Olli Heinonen, and Andrea Stricker, “The Six's' Guiding Principles in Negotiating with Iran,” ISIS, July 22, 2014.
[21] David Albright, “Technical Note: Making Sense out of the IR-8 Centrifuge,” ISIS, September 23, 2014. http://isis-online.org/isis-reports/detail/technical-note-making-sense-o…
[22] See “Solving the Iranian Nuclear Puzzle: Toward a Realistic and Effective Comprehensive Nuclear Agreement,” The Arms Control Association, June 2014.
“Iran and the P5+1: Getting to 'Yes',” The International Crisis Group, August 27, 2014, pp. 13-15.
[23] Iran would “remain a flip of the switch away from sprinting for the bomb,” according to a report by the Gemunder Center Iran Task Force of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA). See “Separative Work Units (SWU) and a Final Deal with Iran,” Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), September 22, 2014. Robert Joseph, former undersecretary of state for arms control and international security under George W. Bush, notes that such an arrangement “would permit Tehran to maintain a reserve capacity to enrich uranium far in excess of that suggested by the SWU allowance.” Robert Joseph, “The Path Ahead for a Nuclear Iran,” National Review Online, August 7, 2014.
[24] “AP exclusive: US, Iran discussing nuclear talks compromise,” The Associated Press, February 3, 2015.
[25] “Up in the air,” The Economist, February 25, 2012.
[26] David Albright and Paul Brannan, “Critique of Recent Bulletin of Atomic Scientists article on the Fordow Enrichment Plant,” ISIS, November 30, 2009. When Fordow's existence became public in 2009, administration officials told a White House press briefing that Fordow could produce “enough for a bomb or two a year.” Press Briefing, The White House, September 25, 2009. Ivan Oelrich and Ivanka Barzashka of the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) estimated in late 2009 that it would take 3,000 IR-1 centrifuges four years to produce sufficient WGU for a weapon using natural uranium. However, this estimate was based on a calculation of the IR-1's effective separative capacity to be only about 0.44 SWU per year. See Ivan Oelrich and Ivanka Barzashka, “A technical evaluation of the Fordow fuel enrichment plant,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, November 23, 2009. Subsequent studies have shown the IR-1 centrifuges at Fordow to average about 0.75 SWU per year. See David Albright, Christina Walrond, and Andrea Stricker, “ISIS Analysis of IAEA Iran Safeguards Report,” ISIS, February 20, 2014. Robert J. Goldston calculates that Fordow would take 2 years to produce one SQ, though he assumes an SQ for Iran's purposes to be higher than Albright does – around 1,300 kg. Robert J. Goldston, “Negotiating with Iran: Breakout and sneakout,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, February 10, 2015.
[27] “Iran says offers ways to ease impasse over underground nuclear plant,” Reuters, July 9, 2014.
[28] Another official said that these conditions include dismantling the system that feeds LEU into the facility's centrifuges, which the officials said would take weeks or months to rebuild. See “As Negotiators Ease Demands on Iran, More Nuclear Talks Are Set,” The New York Times, February 27, 2013.
[29] Ali Hashem, “In Iran, Fordow Nuclear Plant Virtually Sacred Ground,” Al-Monitor, September 19, 2013.
[30] “Iran, 6 Powers Move Closer to Nuclear Talks Deal,” The Associated Press, January 2, 2015.
[31] “President Obama, Secretary Kerry and Secretary Lew Underscore and Reaffirm the Strength of the U.S.-Israel Relationship,” The White House, March 6, 2014.
[32] David Albright, Testimony before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, December 3, 2014.
[33] Numerous mainstream media reports indicate this. See “Have the Iran Nuclear Talks Reached an Impasse?” The Wall Street Journal, February 12. 2015. According to the International Crisis Group, which interviewed numerous American and European officials, and a one-year nominal breakout time remains a “red line” of the P5+1. “Iran Nuclear Talks: The Fog Recedes,” The International Crisis Group, December 10, 2014, p. 4.
[34] “U.S. Lays Out Limits It Seeks in Iran Nuclear Talks,” The New York Times, November 24, 2014.
1d) ?Exposed: Secret Weinberger memo reveals Pollard sentence a sham
By Aaron Klein - Worldnetdaily Exclusive –
http://www.wnd.com/2015/02/exposed-secret-memo-reveals-pollard-sentence-a-sham/
NEW YORK – With little fanfare and no news media coverage, a dramatic,
potentially game-changing development in the Jonathan Pollard spy case
quietly occurred three months ago.
Jonathan Pollard is currently serving his 30th year of an unprecedented life
sentence in a U.S. prison for espionage on behalf of an ally, Israel.
After years of failed efforts petitioning the government and the court
system to gain access to the classified material used to sentence their
client, Pollards’ security-cleared attorneys finally won an appeal for
declassification last fall.
As a result of the appeal, key sections of a 28-year-old classified document
that was the central justification for Pollard’s unprecedentedly harsh
sentence were declassified and released Nov. 13, 2014.
The 49-page document in question is a memorandum that was submitted to the
sentencing judge in 1987 by then-Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger.
The document was obtained and reviewed by WND.
Pollard, who worked as a civilian intelligence analyst for the U.S. Navy,
was arrested in 1985 and indicted in 1987 on one count of passing classified
information to an ally, Israel. He gave up his right to a trial and entered
into a plea agreement, which was intended to spare both Israel and the U.S.
the embarrassment and damage that a lengthy trial might incur. Despite the
government’s acknowledgment that Pollard fulfilled all the terms of his plea
agreement, the government reneged. He was sentenced to life despite the plea
deal.
Pollard is the only person in U.S. history to receive a life sentence for
spying for an ally. The median sentence for the offense is two to four
years.
His sentence is generally acknowledged to have been driven by Weinberger’s
memorandum, a document that was never disclosed to the public nor to any of
Pollard’s security-cleared attorneys from the time that he was sentenced in
1987.
According to U.S. government representations of the memo for nearly three
decades, the document was alleged to demonstrate that Pollard was the spy
responsible for the greatest harm to U.S. national security up to the time
of his sentencing. The government has persisted in this characterization of
the document despite a number of other documents which have been brought to
public attention and which appear to contradict the government’s claims. The
material includes the victim impact statement and a recently declassified
1987 CIA damage assessment of the case. And now, the new declassifications
of the Weinberger document itself.
Since his formal sentencing in 1987, the U.S. government has repeatedly
cited the secret Weinberger document as its main basis to oppose either
parole or presidential pardon for Pollard.
Last July, at Pollard’s first parole hearing after 29 years in prison, the
government again cited the Weinberger declaration, claiming it contained
sufficient evidence to warrant a denial of parole. Neither Pollard’s
security-cleared attorneys nor the parole commission itself were allowed to
view the document.
At the parole hearing, the government relied upon the document to claim
Pollard’s case represented “the greatest compromise of U.S. national
security to that date” – a charge which the parole board accepted without
viewing the document. Numerous former U.S. officials who viewed the document
have since stated categorically that representation is false.
POLLARD'S SPY ACTIVITIES LISTED
About 20 percent of the memo is still classified, while many of the section
heads of the still secretive sections can now be seen in the declassified
version.
According to the document, as reviewed by WND, the crux of Pollard’s spy
activities described in the declassified sections affected the U.S.
relationships with Middle Eastern countries.
It states that Pollard provided Israel with information on Soviet weaponry
and radar systems, information of vital import to the Jewish state’s
security since at the time almost all of the technology used by Israel’s
enemies was Soviet-made.
The document notes Pollard “provided information on Soviet built air-to-air
missile systems and Middle East air orders of battle,” even while allowing
“[s]ince Israel depends for its national security on control of Middle East
air space, much of this information was considered vital, and, as Col. Sella
[of the Israeli Air Force] remarked, was not previously possessed by
Israel.”
The memo states Pollard provided information concerning the fighting
capabilities of Israel’s Mideast adversaries, with many of the specific
examples still classified.
In one newly declassified section, the document reveals Pollard provided
Israel with information on the Libyan air force. This data resulted in
enabling an Israeli airstrike on Palestine Liberation Organization
headquarters in Tunisia by helping the Israelis avoid confrontation with
Libyan air defenses.
The Libyan case provides a glimmer into what Weinberger viewed as harmful to
U.S. national security. Weinberger wrote in the memo the strike harmed U.S.
regional interests because of the resultant damage and loss of life – 62
Palestinians and 27 Tunisians were killed in raid. Weinberger called those
deaths a “detriment” to the U.S.
He further complained the Israeli airstrike may damage relations with Libya,
which the Defense Secretary said he viewed as an “honest broker” for U.S. He
said Libya was helpful when it volunteered, with U.S. assistance, to provide
sanctuary to Yasser Arafat’s PLO – which at the time was regarded by Israel
as an enemy terrorist organization – when Arafat’s group was exiled from
Lebanon in 1982.
Weinberger further claimed Pollard caused “harm” to the U.S. intelligence
community by sharing with Israel intelligence that the U.S. did not believe
was in its interests to provide to the Jewish state.
States the document: “Defendant not only provided classified information to
Israel, which Israel was not authorized to receive, but in doing so, he
furnished original source documents, which had not been ‘sanitized,’ thus
substantially compounding the harm.”
Weinberger is implying Israel was not supposed to receive full intelligence
on some issues and Pollard undermined that policy. Weinberger himself signed
the 1983 U.S.-Israel Memorandum of Understanding that established strategic
military and intelligence cooperation between the U.S. and Israel on
regional threats.
ATTORNEYS PETITION OBAMA
In an oped published at WND today, Pollard’s pro bono attorneys, Eliot Lauer
and Jacques Semmelman, stated, “The recent disclosures … show that the
government has been dishonestly hiding behind the mask of ‘classified
information’ to materially mischaracterize the nature and extent of the harm
caused by Mr. Pollard.”
Lauer and Semmelman contend, “The newly disclosed material shows that any
harm that may have been caused by Mr. Pollard was in the form of short-term
disruption in foreign relations between the United States and certain Arab
countries. That is not at all the same thing as harm to U.S. national
security.”
In light of the new disclosures and the strong support from American
officials who have long questioned Pollard’s “grossly disproportionate” life
sentence, the attorneys urge President Obama to commute Pollard’s sentence
immediately.
Obama “has the solemn duty to uphold the law of the land by finally putting
a stop to this ongoing travesty. There are no more excuses. The president
should exercise his constitutional power and grant clemency to Jonathan
Pollard,” they state in the WND oped.
WEINBERGER CONTRADICTS OWN MEMO, SENIOR U.S. OFFICIALS DEMAND ‘JUSTICE’
Weinberger’s memorandum has been the U.S. government’s main basis for
Pollard’s continued incarceration. Yet stunningly, even Weinberger, before
his death in 2006, recanted. Weinberger stated in a 2002 interview that the
Pollard case was “a very minor matter, but made very important. … It was
made far bigger than its actual importance.”
Weinberger was one of the central figures accused in the Iran-Contra affair
of trading arms to Iran for hostages. He was indicted by a federal grand
jury on two counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice but
was pardoned before trial by President George H. W. Bush, who was Reagan’s
vice president during the scandal.
Since Pollard’s sentencing, a number of former Reagan Administration
officials who worked with Weinberger have charged that he was biased against
Israel and this affected his handling of the Pollard case.
Robert C. “Bud” McFarlane served as U.S. national security adviser and
worked closely with Secretary Weinberger.
In a letter dated Feb. 9, 2012, McFarlane wrote, “The affidavit filed by
former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger was surely inspired in large
part by his deeply held animus toward the state of Israel. His extreme bias
against Israel was manifested in recurrent episodes of strong criticism and
unbalanced reasoning when decisions involving Israel were being made.”
McFarlane went on to say the “imprisonment of Mr. Pollard for more than 26
years is more than excessive,” and “a great injustice.”
Dr. Lawrence J. Korb served as assistant secretary of Defense under
Weinberger and worked closely with him from 1981 to 1985 (a period that
includes Mr. Pollard’s arrest). In a declaration filed Dec. 20, 2013, in the
United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Korb stated that
“the severity of Mr. Pollard’s sentence appears to be the result of Mr.
Weinberger’s almost visceral dislike of the impact that Israel has on U.S.
foreign policy.”
Korb went on to state, “I fully support Mr. Pollard’s application for
release on parole.”
In a letter dated July 5, 2012, R. James Woolsey, former director of the
CIA, wrote of Pollard that he supports his release and that it is time to
“free him.” Woolsey has repeatedly contended in his public statements on the
case that “anti-Semitism” is a factor in the on-going incarceration of
Pollard, and he has repeatedly urged the administration in the pages of the
Walls Street Journal and other newspapers to “Forget that Pollard is a Jew …
pretend he’s a Greek- or Korean- or Filipino-American and free him!”
The day after the new Weinberger declassifications were released last fall,
eight senior U.S. officials, fully versed in the classified material of the
case wrote a strongly worded letter to Obama decrying the parole commission’s
denial of parole to Pollard.
The officials include Woolsey, MacFarlane, Korb, former White House counsel
Bernard Nussbaum and other former heads of the Senate Intelligence
Committee. In their Nov. 14, 2014, letter they slam the alleged “lie” that
was used to deny Pollard parole.
The officials write, “The allegation that Pollard’s espionage ‘was the
greatest compromise of U.S. security to that date’ is false; and not
supported by any evidence in the public record or the classified file. Yet
it was this fiction that the Parole Commission cited to deny parole.”
The officials continue by noting that the government relied on a “stale,
largely discredited, 28-year-old classified memorandum written by former
Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger” in making its decision.
“Mr. Weinberger himself discounted his original damage assessment of the
Pollard case in a 2002 interview … [and] the unreliability of the 1987
Weinberger document was known to and ignored by the Parole Commission,” the
officials wrote.
Perhaps the most damning part of their letter to Obama, who when visiting
Israel in March of 2013 and stated there he would ensure Pollard received a
fair parole hearing, was the close of their appeal to the president:
“Denying a man his freedom based on a claim of damage that is patently false
while ignoring exculpatory documentary evidence and hiding behind a veil of
secret evidence is neither fair nor just, and it simply is not the American
way. …
“We therefore strongly urge you, Mr. President, to tolerate no further delay
in rectifying an injustice that has gone on for far too long. We urge you to
act expeditiously to commute Mr. Pollard’s life sentence to the [more than]
29 years which he has already served.”
1e) Gallup: Seven in 10 Americans Continue to View Israel Favorably
By Lydia Saadhttp://www.gallup.com/poll/181652/seven-americans-continue-view-israel-favorably.aspx?
PRINCETON, N.J. -- Even as relations between the leaders of Israel and the
United States reportedly deteriorate over disagreement about how to handle
Iran's nuclear program, Israel has retained its broadly favorable image in
the U.S. over the past year. Seventy percent of Americans now view that
country favorably, and 62% say they sympathize more with the Israelis than
the Palestinians in the Mideast conflict. By contrast, 17% currently view
the Palestinian Authority favorably, and 16% sympathize more with the
Palestinians.
Americans' Recent Perceptions of the Israelis and the Palestinians
[February 2014]((February 2015))
RATE VERY/ MOSTLY FAVORABLY
[72]((70)) Israel
[19]((17)) Palestinian Authority
SYMPATHIES IN MIDEAST SITUATION
[62]((62)) More with the Israelis
[18]((16)) More with the Palestinians
GALUJP
These attitudes, from Gallup's Feb. 8-11 World Affairs survey, are unchanged
from a year ago, suggesting that neither the evident friction between
President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, nor
the 50-day conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians in the
Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip last year, greatly affected how each is
perceived in the U.S.
In fact, Israel's public image in the U.S. has been fairly strong since
2005, with an average 68% of Americans viewing it favorably. But from 2000
to 2004, when hostilities between Israel and the Palestinians were running
high, its favorable score averaged 60%. Prior to that, Israel's favorable
rating was even more volatile, reflecting other Mideast events, including
the 1991 Gulf War, when positive views of Israel soared after that country
suffered Iraqi rocket attacks.
Gallup first measured Americans' impression of the Palestinian Authority,
the official governing body of the Palestinians, in 2000, and since then,
the percentage viewing it favorably has averaged 17%, diverging
significantly on only a few occasions. One of these came in 2005, when
favorable opinion of the Palestinians increased in polling conducted shortly
after Mahmoud Abbas was elected to succeed Yasser Arafat as Palestinian
president.
Asked to Choose Sides, Six in 10 Americans Favor Israelis
Americans' tendency to sympathize more with the Israelis than the
Palestinians in their regional conflict also peaked in 1991 during the Gulf
War, then fell in 1993 as President Bill Clinton led intense
Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and more Americans favored both sides or
neither side. Americans remained largely neutral through 2001, spanning
several more peace initiatives, when the 9/11 attacks -- as well as years of
failed peace talks that yielded to heightened Palestinian-Israeli
violence -- may have fundamentally changed their outlook toward the Middle
East. Since 2004, Israel has consistently received the majority share of
Americans' sympathies.
Republicans Nearly Unanimous in Support of Israel
A key reason Americans' sympathy for Israel has solidified at a sizable
majority level is that Republicans' support for the Jewish state has
increased considerably, rising from 53% in 2000 to more than 80% since
2014 -- with just 7% choosing the Palestinian Authority. A particularly
large jump in GOP sympathy for Israel occurred in the first few years after
9/11 and at the start of the 2003 Iraq War.
Democrats' support for Israel has also risen since 2000, but not quite as
sharply as Republicans'. Additionally, the percentage of Democrats
sympathizing with Israel fell 10 points this year to 48%, possibly
reflecting the tension between Obama and Netanyahu.
Bottom Line
U.S.-Israel relations have been much in the news over the past year, and
tension between Obama and Netanyahu has reportedly worsened since the latter
accepted House Speaker John Boehner's invitation to address Congress about
Iran this spring -- an offer the White House did not sanction. Meanwhile,
Israel and the United States share a strong interest in seeing the
international terrorist organization known as the Islamic State group, or
ISIS, thwarted. Throughout all of this, Israel's positive image in the U.S.
remains broadly intact nationally, even as Democrats' sympathy for Israel
may have slipped. The percentage of Democrats viewing Israel favorably is
also down, currently at 60%, vs. 74% a year ago. Positive views of the
Palestinian Authority are fairly scarce, but no lower than they have been in
recent years.
Survey Methods
Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted
Feb. 8-11, 2015, with a random sample of 837 adults, aged 18 and older,
living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based
on the total sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is ±4
percentage points at the 95% confidence level.
Each sample of national adults includes a minimum quota of 50% cellphone
respondents and 50% landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas by
time zone within region. Landline and cellular telephone numbers are
selected using random-digit-dial methods.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2)
How do you know that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has taken at least temporary custody of frontrunner status in the race for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016? Beyond, of course, the polls that show him rocketing to the front of the pack in critical early primary states likeIowa? The political press is coming down hard on him and his nascent campaign.
Scott Walker is officially the GOP frontrunner, and the media is out for blood
By Noah Rothman
How do you know that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has taken at least temporary custody of frontrunner status in the race for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016? Beyond, of course, the polls that show him rocketing to the front of the pack in critical early primary states likeIowa? The political press is coming down hard on him and his nascent campaign.
After three unambiguous statewide victories in a Democratic state in just four years, Scott Walker is thoroughly vetted. If there were skeletons in his closet, the media and the myriad opposition researchers scrutinizing his past would have found them by now. “Scott Walker could very well be indicted in the coming days,” the forlorn MSNBC host Ed Schultz predictedon the night of Walker’s second statewide victory. He never was.
So, the press has taken a keen interest in catching Walker in unflattering moments or making hash out of otherwise minor controversies. Rudy Giuliani was speaking at an event for Walker when he sent the political media into a manic frenzy in which reporter and pundit alike tripped over one another to denounce what they dubbed the New York City’ mayor’s callous and quite possibly racist assertion that President Barack Obama doesn’t love his country. Only now, on day five of that story, is it finally beginning to fade from the media’s focus.
When Walker refused to denounce the former Big Apple mayor to the media’s satisfaction, they pounced. “What Scott Walker did ought to disqualify him as a serious presidential contender,”Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank hyperventilated. “Clownish,” insisted Rachel Maddow Show producer Steve Benen. “Spineless,” The Washington Post editorial board averred.
And all this merely because the Badger State governor said “the mayor can speak for himself” despite conceding that his comments were “aggressive.” The press would not have been satisfied unless Walker had thrown himself upon a pyre in penitence for the sin of having attended an event at which the president’s values were questioned and his honor attacked. It was bizarre to see the political press respond to Giuliani’s remarks as though they had been personally insulted.
This episode did provide the media with the opportunity to quiz every Republican candidateabout how they feel about a politician out of office for over a decade. Despite the fact that the head of the Democratic National Committee is involved in a significant quid pro quo scandaland remains suspect of interfaith marriage and the Vice President of the United States is aserial groper, Democrats are spared association with these figures by an energetic political media.
You will perhaps not be surprised to learn that Walker has disqualified himself from serving as the President of the United States twice in less than one week, at least according to the Beltway media. Again, Walker was judged to have failed to meet the subjectively defined standards of conduct befitting a member of the opposition party when talking about President Obama. When the Wisconsin governor was inexplicably asked by The Washington Post whether or not he believed that Barack Obama was a Christian, Walker stepped on a landmine when he answered, “I don’t know.”
“I’ve actually never talked about it or I haven’t read about that,” Walker said, his voice calm and firm. “I’ve never asked him that,” he added. “You’ve asked me to make statements about people that I haven’t had a conversation with about that. How [could] I say if I know either of you are a Christian?”
Now, let’s step back a minute. Those of you who didn’t succumb to the compulsion to wail and tear at your clothes over the mere suggestion that Barack Obama wasn’t Christian enough for Walker’s tastes might be predisposed to extend Walker the benefit of some doubt. The interpretation of these remarks that many in the journalistic community apparently share is that Walker was consciously trying to cast doubt on Obama’s faith and frame him as “the other” (and, no, I can’t believe we’re still having this debate after six years of the Obama presidency). It’s possible Walker was trying to be a bit cagey, as was Hillary Clinton when she told a political reporter in 2008 that Obama wasn’t a closet follower of the Islamic faith “as far as I know.” That is, however, the worst possible interpretation of Walker’s intentions. So few in the media entertained the idea that the governor might not have been indulging his inner Machiavelli and was perhaps honestly trying to avoid answering that question at all.
And good for him if he wasn’t. It’s a stupid question, and Walker called it as much in the second part of his answer that, unsurprisingly, is getting far less play in the press. “To me, this is a classic example of why people hate Washington and, increasingly, they dislike the press,” Walker said. “The things they care about don’t even remotely come close to what you’re asking about.”
He’s absolutely right. At a time when American combat forces are reportedly preparing to re-engage an enemy of nearly unfathomable horror in the Middle East, American diplomatic energy consistently fails to stop the bloodletting in Europe or prevent Iran from going nuclear, and when the Affordable Care Act consistently fails to perform as advertised, the compulsion that drives the media to enforce Republican reverence toward the president is quite sordid.
Conservatives who truly believe Obama is some sort of Manchurian candidate or a covert Muslim are deeply misguided, and not one single serious figure within the party espouses those views. Most of those who do were effectively sidelined long ago. They subsist today on the attentions of the political press and increasingly self-marginalized institutions like CPAC. To imply that Walker was subtly channeling that pathology in conservatives is for the press to again declare themselves code breakers who can efficiently sniff out “dog whistles” better than even their intended recipients.
And that’s just what many did:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Why is it so damned difficult for someone to say that Obama is a Christian who loves America—and he also happens to have been a really bad president?” Matt Lewis asked in The Daily Beast. “Why not grant him this small concession? He’s never going to be on the ballot again, so why are Republicans still fighting the last war?”
Incidentally, “I really don’t know,” is precisely what Walker said to the tens of reporters who hounded him over the course of Giuliani-gate. It is telling that the Beltway reporting class reads Walker saying “I don’t know” and hears Col. Jessup issuing a sprawling confession after breaking down amid a withering cross-examination.
Moreover, and this will surprise the reporting class, but not all strict adherents to the Christian faith take your word for it if you claim to be a coreligionist. Those reporters who bristle at the notion that Obama’s devotion to what he has claimed are his faith-based convictions is suspect have conveniently forgotten that the president’s closest advisor admitted as much just weeks ago:
The worst part of all of this is that the political press does not seem to realize how completely they have let the veil slip in this agitated and perhaps unprecedented effort to protect Obama’s good name. The most deferential assessment of the media’s behavior over the last week would at least concede that they are preoccupied with frivolities. Nothing so energizes the media as the easy questions and the uncomplicated stories that provide them with opportunities to posture with presumed moral superiority. The worst one can say of the press over the course of this episode is that they remain committed to the success of the Obama presidency even while it flounders. That is an impulse that is growing increasingly frantic as the end of the Obama’s presidency nears and as his dubious legacy is repeatedly impugned by those who aspire to succeed him.
No comments:
Post a Comment