The proposition that the deal postpones Iranian nuclear activity toward achieving a bomb for ten years is based on the repetition of a lie as believable but then lazy minds and hypocrites are prone to do such things.
Why anyone accepts the argument that a nation which possesses huge oil reserves needs nuclear power is ludicrous but lazy minds will accept anything and hypocrite Quakers ,with questionable intentions, follow close behind .(See 1, 1a, 1b, 1c and 1d below.)
...it’s in Spanish, so you need to read the captions for the
dialogue....but the visual together with the captions gives you some
idea as to how some in the world see our deal with Iran …………………….
https://youtu.be/1hIz_vkZH5k
===
Hillarious' biggest enemy is not herself but VJ! Obama's surrogate mama is far more interested in protecting her boy than serving the specious interests of the Demwits! (See 2 below.)
===
Finally:"Fox News (not really )...they appear to have buckled under to be h elite ruling political class...
http://americanagenda.us/
===
Drawin time. (See 3 below.)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
===
1) How and Why to Kill the Deal
By Caroline Glick
Washington Post columnist David Ignatius is a reasonable man. After hearing back to back interviews with US Secretary of State John Kerry and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the Obama administration’s pact with Iran’s ayatollahs, he tried to balance them out.
Speaking Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation, Ignatius equivocated that on the one hand, “My takeaway [from Kerry] is that the details of this deal are pretty solid, that it’s been carefully negotiated, that it will hold up for 10 years or more.”
On the other hand, he said, “Netanyahu is right. Iran is a dangerous destabilizing force in the Middle East. So somehow good policy seems to me to use the deal to cap the nuclear threat that Iran would pose for 10 years but work on that other problem.”
Ignatius’s remarks serve to justify supporting the deal. After all, if Obama’s agreement caps Iran’s nuclear program for 10 years, then it’s a good thing. As for the other stuff, it can be dealt with separately.
Drawin time. (See 3 below.)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
===
1) How and Why to Kill the Deal
By Caroline Glick
Washington Post columnist David Ignatius is a reasonable man. After hearing back to back interviews with US Secretary of State John Kerry and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the Obama administration’s pact with Iran’s ayatollahs, he tried to balance them out.
Speaking Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation, Ignatius equivocated that on the one hand, “My takeaway [from Kerry] is that the details of this deal are pretty solid, that it’s been carefully negotiated, that it will hold up for 10 years or more.”
On the other hand, he said, “Netanyahu is right. Iran is a dangerous destabilizing force in the Middle East. So somehow good policy seems to me to use the deal to cap the nuclear threat that Iran would pose for 10 years but work on that other problem.”
Ignatius’s remarks serve to justify supporting the deal. After all, if Obama’s agreement caps Iran’s nuclear program for 10 years, then it’s a good thing. As for the other stuff, it can be dealt with separately.
Unfortunately, while eminently reasonable sounding, Ignatius’s analysis is incorrect. Kerry’s details of the deal are beside the point. The big picture is the only thing that matters. That picture has two main points.
First, the deal guarantees that Iran will develop nuclear weapons. Second, it gives $150 billion to the mullahs.
The details of the deal – the number of centrifuges that keep spinning, the verification mechanisms, the dispute resolution procedures, etc. – are all debatable, and largely irrelevant, at least when compared to the two irrefutable aspects of the big picture.
According to the administration, today Iran needs a year to use the nuclear materials it is known to possess to make a nuclear bomb. Other sources claim that Iran requires several months to accomplish the task.
Since these materials will remain in Iran’s possession under the deal, if Iran abandons the agreement, it will need at most a year to build nuclear weapons.
Then there are the unknown aspects of Iran’s nuclear program. We must assume that Iran has ongoing covert nuclear operations in unknown installations through which it has acquired unknown capabilities.
These capabilities will likely reduce the time Iran requires to make bombs.
Under the deal, the US and its negotiating partners are required to protect Iran’s nuclear assets from sabotage and other forms of attack. They are required as well to teach Iran how to develop and use more advanced centrifuges. As a consequence, when the agreement expires, Iran will be able to build nuclear bombs at will.
If Iran remains a threat, the deal bars the US from taking any steps to counter it aside from all-out war.
The agreement ends the international sanctions regime against Iran. With the sanctions goes any prospect of an international coalition joining forces to take military action against Iran, if Iran does walk away from the deal. So sanctions are gone, deterrence is gone. And that leaves only war.
In other words, far from diminishing the chance of war, the deal makes it inevitable that Iran will get the bomb or there will be a full scale war, or both.
Then there is the jackpot payback.
Who knows? Maybe the mullahs will use their $150b. to finance new women’s universities in Tehran and Mashhad, and a seminary for Islamic liberalism in Qom.
Or maybe the money will be used to fund insurgencies and proxy wars and terror campaigns throughout the region and the world.
The extraordinary thing about the deal is that the only person who gets a say in how that money is spent is Iran’s dictator Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. And Khamenei has been pretty clear about how he intends to use the cash.
In back to back anti-American rants on Friday and Saturday, Khamenei repeatedly threatened the US and extolled calls for its destruction. Speaking in front of a banner at Friday prayers which declared “We will trample America,” Khamenei praised calls for “Death to America.”
Saturday he promised to continue to fund and sponsor terrorism and proxy wars. Just as notably, he refused to commit to upholding the nuclear deal with the US and the other five powers.
As far as the Obama administration is concerned, now that the UN Security Council has anchored the agreement in a binding resolution and so given the force of international law to a deal that guarantees Iran will receives the bomb and $150b., the deal is done. It cannot be walked back.
But this is not necessarily true. Congress may have more power than it realizes to kill the deal before Iran gets the money and before its other provisions are implemented.
Over the months leading up to the conclusion of negotiations last Tuesday, Obama refused to acknowledge that he was negotiating a treaty. Rather he said it was nothing more than an executive agreement.
Consequently, he argued, the US Senate’s sole authority to ratify treaties by two-thirds majority would be inapplicable to the deal with Iran.
Obama also said he would further sideline Congress by anchoring the deal in a binding UN Security Council resolution. This resolution would force Obama’s successor to uphold the deal after he leaves office.
Obama mitigated his position slightly when Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, drafted the Corker-Cardin bill with veto-proof majorities in both houses. The bill, which Obama reluctantly signed into law, requires Obama to submit the deal to an up or down vote in both houses. If more than two thirds of Senators and Congressmen oppose it, then the US will not abrogate its unilateral sanctions against Iran.
In other words, Obama agreed that if Congress turned the Constitution on its head by replacing the two-thirds Senate majority required to approve a treaty with a two-thirds bicameral majority necessary to disapprove his executive agreement – then he wouldn’t go to the Security Council until after Congress voted.
When Obama betrayed his pledge and went to the Security Council on Monday, he gave Congress an opening to reconsider its position, ditch the restrictive Corker-Cardin law and reassert the Senate’s treaty approving authority.
As former US federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy argued in National Review last week, by among other things canceling the weapons and missile embargoes on Iran, the six-power deal with Iran went well beyond the scope of the Corker-Cardin law, which dealt only with nuclear sanctions relief. As a consequence, Congress can claim that there is no reason to invoke it.
Rather than invoke Corker-Cardin, Congress can pass a joint resolution determining that the deal with Iran is a treaty and announce that pursuant to the US Constitution, the Senate will schedule a vote on it within 30 days. Alternatively, Congress can condition the Iran deal’s legal stature on the passage of enabling legislation – that requires simple majorities in both houses.
Dan Darling, foreign policy adviser to Republican Senator and presidential hopeful Rand Paul wrote Monday that senators can use Senate procedure to force the Foreign Relations Committee to act in this manner. Darling argued that House Speaker John Boehner can either refuse to consider the deal since it is a treaty, or insist on passing enabling legislation under normal legislative procedures.
Monday Netanyahu explained that by keeping US sanctions in force, Congress can limit Iran’s capacity to move beyond the current sanctions regime even after it is canceled. Every state and firm considering business opportunities with Tehran will have to weigh them against the opportunity cost of being barred from doing business with the US.
Iran for its part may walk away from the deal entirely if Congress acts in this manner. If it does, then the US will not be obligated by any of the deal’s requirements. The continued viability of the Security Council resolution will be something for the lawyers to argue over.
The devil in Obama’s deal with Iran is not in the mind-numbing details, but in the big picture. The deal guarantees Iran will get the bomb. It gives the Iranian regime $150b.
To secure these concessions, Obama has trampled congressional authority.
If the American people think this doesn’t advance their national interest, they should encourage their congressional representatives to ditch Corker-Cardin and use their full authority, as a co-equal branch of the government, to scupper it.
First, the deal guarantees that Iran will develop nuclear weapons. Second, it gives $150 billion to the mullahs.
The details of the deal – the number of centrifuges that keep spinning, the verification mechanisms, the dispute resolution procedures, etc. – are all debatable, and largely irrelevant, at least when compared to the two irrefutable aspects of the big picture.
According to the administration, today Iran needs a year to use the nuclear materials it is known to possess to make a nuclear bomb. Other sources claim that Iran requires several months to accomplish the task.
Since these materials will remain in Iran’s possession under the deal, if Iran abandons the agreement, it will need at most a year to build nuclear weapons.
Then there are the unknown aspects of Iran’s nuclear program. We must assume that Iran has ongoing covert nuclear operations in unknown installations through which it has acquired unknown capabilities.
These capabilities will likely reduce the time Iran requires to make bombs.
Under the deal, the US and its negotiating partners are required to protect Iran’s nuclear assets from sabotage and other forms of attack. They are required as well to teach Iran how to develop and use more advanced centrifuges. As a consequence, when the agreement expires, Iran will be able to build nuclear bombs at will.
If Iran remains a threat, the deal bars the US from taking any steps to counter it aside from all-out war.
The agreement ends the international sanctions regime against Iran. With the sanctions goes any prospect of an international coalition joining forces to take military action against Iran, if Iran does walk away from the deal. So sanctions are gone, deterrence is gone. And that leaves only war.
In other words, far from diminishing the chance of war, the deal makes it inevitable that Iran will get the bomb or there will be a full scale war, or both.
Then there is the jackpot payback.
Who knows? Maybe the mullahs will use their $150b. to finance new women’s universities in Tehran and Mashhad, and a seminary for Islamic liberalism in Qom.
Or maybe the money will be used to fund insurgencies and proxy wars and terror campaigns throughout the region and the world.
The extraordinary thing about the deal is that the only person who gets a say in how that money is spent is Iran’s dictator Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. And Khamenei has been pretty clear about how he intends to use the cash.
In back to back anti-American rants on Friday and Saturday, Khamenei repeatedly threatened the US and extolled calls for its destruction. Speaking in front of a banner at Friday prayers which declared “We will trample America,” Khamenei praised calls for “Death to America.”
Saturday he promised to continue to fund and sponsor terrorism and proxy wars. Just as notably, he refused to commit to upholding the nuclear deal with the US and the other five powers.
As far as the Obama administration is concerned, now that the UN Security Council has anchored the agreement in a binding resolution and so given the force of international law to a deal that guarantees Iran will receives the bomb and $150b., the deal is done. It cannot be walked back.
But this is not necessarily true. Congress may have more power than it realizes to kill the deal before Iran gets the money and before its other provisions are implemented.
Over the months leading up to the conclusion of negotiations last Tuesday, Obama refused to acknowledge that he was negotiating a treaty. Rather he said it was nothing more than an executive agreement.
Consequently, he argued, the US Senate’s sole authority to ratify treaties by two-thirds majority would be inapplicable to the deal with Iran.
Obama also said he would further sideline Congress by anchoring the deal in a binding UN Security Council resolution. This resolution would force Obama’s successor to uphold the deal after he leaves office.
Obama mitigated his position slightly when Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, drafted the Corker-Cardin bill with veto-proof majorities in both houses. The bill, which Obama reluctantly signed into law, requires Obama to submit the deal to an up or down vote in both houses. If more than two thirds of Senators and Congressmen oppose it, then the US will not abrogate its unilateral sanctions against Iran.
In other words, Obama agreed that if Congress turned the Constitution on its head by replacing the two-thirds Senate majority required to approve a treaty with a two-thirds bicameral majority necessary to disapprove his executive agreement – then he wouldn’t go to the Security Council until after Congress voted.
When Obama betrayed his pledge and went to the Security Council on Monday, he gave Congress an opening to reconsider its position, ditch the restrictive Corker-Cardin law and reassert the Senate’s treaty approving authority.
As former US federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy argued in National Review last week, by among other things canceling the weapons and missile embargoes on Iran, the six-power deal with Iran went well beyond the scope of the Corker-Cardin law, which dealt only with nuclear sanctions relief. As a consequence, Congress can claim that there is no reason to invoke it.
Rather than invoke Corker-Cardin, Congress can pass a joint resolution determining that the deal with Iran is a treaty and announce that pursuant to the US Constitution, the Senate will schedule a vote on it within 30 days. Alternatively, Congress can condition the Iran deal’s legal stature on the passage of enabling legislation – that requires simple majorities in both houses.
Dan Darling, foreign policy adviser to Republican Senator and presidential hopeful Rand Paul wrote Monday that senators can use Senate procedure to force the Foreign Relations Committee to act in this manner. Darling argued that House Speaker John Boehner can either refuse to consider the deal since it is a treaty, or insist on passing enabling legislation under normal legislative procedures.
Monday Netanyahu explained that by keeping US sanctions in force, Congress can limit Iran’s capacity to move beyond the current sanctions regime even after it is canceled. Every state and firm considering business opportunities with Tehran will have to weigh them against the opportunity cost of being barred from doing business with the US.
Iran for its part may walk away from the deal entirely if Congress acts in this manner. If it does, then the US will not be obligated by any of the deal’s requirements. The continued viability of the Security Council resolution will be something for the lawyers to argue over.
The devil in Obama’s deal with Iran is not in the mind-numbing details, but in the big picture. The deal guarantees Iran will get the bomb. It gives the Iranian regime $150b.
To secure these concessions, Obama has trampled congressional authority.
If the American people think this doesn’t advance their national interest, they should encourage their congressional representatives to ditch Corker-Cardin and use their full authority, as a co-equal branch of the government, to scupper it.
1a)Unfriendly Friends Defend Defend Iran Deal to U.S. Jews
One of the leading voices in the effort to win American Jewish support for the Iran deal is an official of an organization that opposes U.S. aid to Israel and promotes BDS; but he doesn’t mention that when he makes his appeals to the Jewish community. Last week, Bradley Harris co-authored an op-ed that was published in some Jewish weekly newspapers, explaining why Jews and Israel should support the Iran agreement. To demonstrate his Jewish credentials, Harris identified himself as “a member of Har Zion Temple in Penn Valley, Pennsylvania.” He also acknowledged he is an official of the “Friends Committee on National Legislation.” But he didn’t explain what that Committee is. He should have, because it is very relevant to the advice he is giving about Iran.
For example, his Committee’s website bluntly declares: “FCNL opposes U.S. military aid to Israel and supports humanitarian and development aid to the region. We call on the Obama administration and Congress to urge Israel to immediately lift the blockade on Gaza…” Does that sound like an organization that cares about Israel’s well-being?
According to Harris, the only alternative to this agreement is war with Iran, so therefore “Israel’s security is best served by the agreement,” and the rejection of the deal equals “threatening the lives of civilians in Israel.” Can we rely on the judgement of Harris and his colleagues at the Friends Committee? Let’s take a look at the Friends’ record on Israel and see if they have shown good judgment in the past.
The Friends Committee on National Legislation is part of the American Friends Service Committee, which is the foreign policy arm of the Quakers. As a matter of religious principle, the Quakers are pacifists, but their pacifism took a peculiar turn in the 1960s.
I saw this transformation up close, because in those days I was a student at a leading Quaker prep school in Philadelphia. In those heady times for teenage rebels and armchair revolutionaries, Third World national liberation movements were all the rage among the Quakers.
The Friends even came up with a convoluted way of interpreting Western policies in the underdeveloped world as the equivalent of violence, therefore justifying terrorism against Western targets as a kind of self-defense
The Arab cause in general, and the Palestinian cause in particular, became especially popular among the Friends. As early as 1973, the Quakers urged a halt to U.S. aid to Israel. The following year, they established a “Community Information and Legal Aid Center” in Jerusalem, which provided legal assistance to PLO supporters.
They also began bringing pro-PLO activists to the United States for speaking tours. One was Raymonda Tawil, who when asked if she condemned Palestinian terrorists who “machine-gunned women and children,” replied, “The Israelis drive us to it. We have no alternative.” Another Quaker speaker was Terre Fleener, who spent five years in an Israeli prison for photographing potential targets for Arab terrorists. The Friends have sponsored a few Israeli speakers, too – but only a certain kind of Israeli, such as the extremist Gideon Spiro, who has compared Israeli soldiers to Nazis and asserted that “every settler is a legitimate target for Palestinian resistance fighters.”
The Friends were among the first to divest from Israel. In 2012, the Quaker Friends Fiduciary Corporation voted to divest from Hewlett-Packard, because it provided technology consulting to the Israeli Navy. Not to “settlers.” Not to “the occupation.” To the Israeli navy, whose purpose is to help safeguard Israel’s very existence.
From there, it was a short leap for the Friends to the leadership of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. The American Friends Service Committee even sponsored a “We Divest Campaign Student Leadership Team Summer Training Institute,” a kind of summer camp in upstate New York to incubate the BDS campus campaign.
If all of the above were not sufficient to call into question the soundness of Quaker judgement in such matters, recall that the American Friends Service Committee sponsored a dinner with then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in New York City in September 2007. The New York Times reported that the event was a “friendly, even warm exchange” with the world’s most prominent Jew-hater.
The Friends’ general secretary, Mary Ellen McNish, told the Times that the event would facilitate “the path of dialogue.” Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, responded that the “very presence” of the Quakers and others at the dinner “gives [Ahmedinijad] respectability.”
Hoenlein was right. What the Friends have been doing since the 1970s, and what their staff member Bradley Harris is doing now, is giving respectability to enemies of Israel. Whether promoting anti-Israel speakers, lobbying to choke off Israel’s weapons and let Hamas import whatever military material it wants, or claiming that the Iranian regime can be trusted to give up its nuclear program, the Friends have demonstrated yet again that their judgement and advice on matters affecting Israel cannot be trusted.
Mr. Korn, the former executive editor of the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent and the Miami Jewish Tribune, is chairman of the Philadelphia Religious Zionists.
1b)
Critical Points To Consider In Understanding The Iranian Nuclear Deal
Introduction
The following analysis is the first in a series which will discuss the Iranian nuclear deal and will examine the JCPOA from the American perspective. It will focus on the components of the JCPOA as a legal document. It will also draw on United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 2231 which endorsed the JCPOA for reference. It will not discuss possible future implications, nor does it mean to be an overall assessment of the deal.
It should be emphasized that, contrary to how it is perceived, the JCPOA is not a bilateral or multilateral contract between the United States and/or Europe and Iran. Nothing has been signed and nothing is judicially binding between any of the parties. It is a set of understandings that was sent to a third party, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), for endorsement. This structure is a result of Iran's insistence to not sign any bilateral or multilateral contract.
JCPOA Provisions Prevent Future Inspection Of Military Sites[1]
The provisions of the agreement can be interpreted to prevent the inspection of military sites rather than enable inspection. The provisions for inspection by the IAEA create two categories:
1. The first category dictates that inspectors may request to enter a site that is suspected of having nuclear material. There is a subsequent process that the IAEA must go through in order to access that site, involving a back-and-forth exchange of requests and explanations with Iran. If an agreement cannot be reached, the Joint Commission, which is composed of the E3/EU+3 and Iran,[2] can decide on the appropriate means to resolve the issue within 7 days on the basis of 5 votes out of its 8 members, and Iran must implement the decision within 3 days.
2. The second category distinguishes military sites from the other sites to which the IAEA may request access by stating, "…such requests [for access] will not be aimed at interfering with Iranian military or other national security activities."[3] This provision effectively excludes a priori sites where Iran can claim that the IAEA is interfering with its military or national security activities. Therefore, the process described in the first category which would force Iran to submit to inspection at the end of the 24-day request period does not apply.[4]
3. The provisions of the JCPOA also stipulate that the IAEA will have to "make available relevant information"[5] when explaining why they want access to a site. This provision may serve as a basis for delay and obfuscation of access by Iran, claiming that it needs relevant sources of intelligence revealed, as it has done in the past.
Duration Of Sanctions Could Be Less than 8 Years Dependent On Report From The Director General Of The IAEA
The JCPOA establishes an option to make Transition Day arrive sooner than the specified 8 year time period by saying, "Transition Day will occur 8 years from Adoption Day or upon a report from the Director General of the IAEA to the IAEA Board of Governors and in parallel to the UN Security Council stating that the IAEA has reached the Broader Conclusion that all nuclear material in Iran remains in peaceful activities, whichever is earlier."[6] There is no time limitation regarding in which year the Director General of the IAEA could provide this report.
Re-Imposition Of Sanctions Dependent On Security Council
The Security Council adopted UNSCR 2231 on July 20, 2015. Articles 11 and 12 of the resolution stipulate that the re-imposition of sanctions in case of "non-performance" by Iran may occur. However, the final sentence in Article 12 provides a loophole so that sanctions may not re-imposed by saying, "…unless the Security Council decides otherwise."[7]
Accumulation Of Natural Uranium Permitted Equal To Present Amount Of Enriched Uranium
The provisions of the JCPOA stipulate that Iran will have to dispose of its 10 tons of low-level enriched uranium either by transferring it to Russia or by selling it in the commercial market. It also stipulates that the amount of enriched uranium that Iran is allowed to have cannot exceed 300 kilograms for 15 years. While the provisions are designed to inspect Iran's uranium mining facilities, supply chain, and the quantity of enriched uranium it possesses, it allows Iran to trade its enriched uranium for equal amounts of natural uranium for 15 years. This uranium could be enriched to higher, weapons-grade levels after the 15 – year time limit.
PMD Investigation: Iran Demanded Only To Help In Process, Results Will Not Impact Implementation Of JCPOA
The provisions in the JCPOA demand only that Iran collaborate with the IAEA in the process of verification of the Possible Military Dimensions (PMD) in order for the process of lifting sanctions to begin. It is indifferent about the results, i.e. it makes no mention of what would happen if the verification process were to discover that Iran had previously attempted to develop nuclear weapons.[8]
Parchin Investigation Put Into Secrecy
Under the JCPOA, the handling of the Parchin issue has been put into secrecy. Parchin is an example of suspected nuclear weaponization activity that took place in a military base.[9] Not revealing the details of the case conceals Iran's attempt to build a military option – contrary to its repeated denials of such allegations.[10]
Arak Remains Heavy Water Facility, Authorized For Heavy Water Export
The Arak facility houses Iran's heavy water production plant and a heavy water reactor. Despite the vague wording regarding the state of the reactor following the endorsement of the JCPOA (i.e. Iran will "redesign" the reactor and it will be "modernised"),[11] it will still continue to operate partly using heavy water. In addition, "All excess heavy water will be made available for export to the international market."[12]
Interview Of Military Scientists Excluded From JCPOA
The Western demand in the negotiations that Iran allow the interviewing of Iranian nuclear scientists was excluded altogether from the JCPOA.
*Y. Carmon is President and Founder of MEMRI; A. Braunstein is a Research Fellow at MEMRI; A. Savyon is Director of the MEMRI Iranian Media Project.
Endnotes:
1d)
[1] It should be noted that according to reports, the United States administration did not see the inspection of military sites as "appropriate." A government spokesman told reporters that, "The entry point isn't we must be able to get into every military site, because the United States of America wouldn't allow anybody to get into every military site, so that's not appropriate."http://news.yahoo.com/us-says-system-reached-un-access-suspect-iran-162509010.html
[2] The Joint Commission will "monitor the implementation of this JCPOA and will carry out the functions provided for in this JCPOA. The Joint Commission will address issues arising from the implementation of this JCPOA and will operate in accordance with the provisions as detailed in the relevant annex." JCPOA, Preamble and General Provisions, ix.http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/world/full-text-of-the-iran-nuclear-deal/1651/
[3] JCPOA, Annex I, Q.74. For full text, see Footnote 2.
[4] It should be mentioned that the JCPOA does not in any way mention permission to access military sites. The term "military" is only referenced in regard to the prevention of access to sites where such access may interfere in military activities. Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan confirmed this on July 20 by stating, "Definitely, we will not give any (international) authority access to our military and security secrets." http://www.tasnimnews.com/english/Home/Single/805144
Similarly, Supreme Leader Khamenei's top adviser for international affairs Ali Akbar Velayati stated on July 21, "They (the westerners) have made some comments about defensive and missile issues, but Iran will not allow them to visit our military centers and interfere in decisions about the type of Iran's defensive weapons." http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13940430000961
[5] JCPOA, Annex I, Q.76. See Footnote 2 for link to text.
[6] JCPOA, Annex V, D.19. See Footnote 2 for link to text.
[8] For more information, see: http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/8624.htm
[9] Parchin is a military facility in which, according to a 2011 IAEA report, Iran conducted activities aimed at building nuclear weapons. See: http://isis-online.org/uploads/isis-reports/documents/Iran_24May2011.pdf
[10] Furthermore, the integrity of the IAEA investigation into Parchin has come into question: during the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on July 23, Senator Bob Menendez questioned Secretary Kerry about whether the soil samples that will be given to the IAEA to test would be provided by Iran. Secretary Kerry only responded that the information was confidential.https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=730&v=N4TK8hOLrNA
[11] JCPOA, I.B.8. See Footnote 2 for link to text.
[12] JCPOA, I.B.10. See Footnote 2 for link to text.
1c)
Nuclear Creepout: Iran's Third Path to the Bomb
by Gary C. Gambill
The National Interest
The National Interest
Originally published under the title, "Creepin': Here's How Iran Will Really Build the Bomb."
In assessing whether the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action(JCPOA) signed by the P5+1 world powers and Iran last week is an adequate safeguard against the latter's pursuit of a nuclear weapon, Obama administration officials and arms control wonks typically discuss two heavily stylized breakout scenarios.
In an overt breakout, Iran brushes aside nuclear inspectors and begins openly racing to enrich weapons grade uranium (WGU) using its two declared enrichment plants at Natanz and Fordow. The JCPOA ostensibly blocks this path by limiting the number of centrifuges Iran can operate to 5,060 and capping the amount of low-enriched uranium (LEU) it can keep on hand to use as feedstock at 300 kilograms. This supposedly lengthens its breakout time—how quickly it can produce sufficient fissile material for one atomic bomb should it make a rush to build one—from two or three months at present to at least a year, giving the international community more time to mobilize a response to the breakout.
In a covert breakout, or sneakout, Iran builds parallel infrastructure in secret to produce the fissile material for a bomb. The JCPOA ostensibly blocks this path with an inspections regime designed to detect the diversion of fissile material, the construction of illicit centrifuges, off-the-books uranium mining, and so forth.
The terms of the JCPOA make small-scale cheating virtually unpunishable.
|
Though much ink has been spilled about whether these two "paths" to the bomb have been blocked, both presuppose a decision by Iran to sacrifice its reconciliation with the world in the next ten to fifteen years for the immediate gratification of building a weapon (the purpose of a covert breakout is less to avoid detection before crossing the finish line than to make the process less vulnerable to decisive disruption).
Such an abrupt change of heart by the Iranian regime is certainly possible, but more worrisome is the prospect that Iran's nuclear policy after the agreement goes into effect will be much the same as it was before—comply with the letter and spirit of its obligations only to the degree necessary to ward off unacceptably costly consequences. This will likely take the form of what I call nuclear creepout—activities, both open and covert, legal and illicit, designed to negate JCPOA restrictions without triggering costly multilateral reprisals.
The text of the JCPOA appears designed to give the Iranians wide latitude to interpret their own obligations.
|
It is important to bear in mind that the JCPOA bars signatories from re-imposing any sanctions or their equivalents on Iran, except by way of a United Nations Security Council resolution restoring sanctions. "That means there will be no punishments for anything less than a capital crime,"explains Robert Satloff. The language demanded by Iranian negotiators, and accepted by the Obama administration, makes small-scale cheating virtually unpunishable.
Moreover, the specific terms of the JCPOA appear to have been designed to give the Iranians wide latitude to interpret their own obligations. Two, in particular, should raise eyebrows.
The LEU Cap
About 1,000 kilograms of LEU is supposedly needed to produce, through further enrichment, enough weapons grade uranium for a nuclear explosive device (let's assume for sake of argument that that the Obama administration's erroneous math is correct). This is what inspectors call a "significant quantity" (SQ). The JCPOA's requirement that Iran "keep its uranium stockpile under 300 kilograms" would force it to enrich a substantial quantity of natural uranium all the way up to weapons grade, thereby lengthening the process of producing a SQ by several months.
Iran is allowed to operate 5,060 IR-1 centrifuges under the terms of the JCPOA.
|
But what exactly happens to LEU produced by Iranian centrifuges in excess of the 300-kilogram limit? The JCPOA appendix says it "will be down blended to natural uranium level or be sold on the international market and delivered to the international buyer." Maintenance of the 300 kilogram limit relies upon Iran continually and punctually reprocessing or transferring material it already possesses.
What happens if Iran's handling of all this is less than perfect? Suppose 100 kilograms or so of LEU in the process of being down-blended or delivered to an "international buyer" of Iran's choosing routinely remains recoverable at any one time because of apparent inefficiencies and bottlenecks. Would the international community be willing to cancel the JCPOA over this infraction? Almost certainly not.
What if this number swelled periodically to 150 or 200 kilograms every so often because of some special complication or another, like a breakout of plant machinery or truck drivers' strike? Probably not. Since an overt breakout attempt would likely commence at one of these peaks in LEU availability (and when smaller amounts of medium enriched uranium have yet to be converted or transferred), we can knock a month or so off its breakout time.
The Centrifuges Cap
The Obama administration's one-year breakout time calculation assumes that Iran uses only the 5,060 IR-1 centrifuges it is allowed to have spinning under the JCPOA—and that it does not bring more into operation for a whole year after kicking out inspectors and beginning a sprint for a nuke. This could have been achieved by dismantling the large majority of its roughly 15,000 excess centrifuges falling outside this quota, but Iran insisted from the beginning that it would never destroyany of them and its adversaries eventually caved.
Although U.S negotiators reportedly proposed a variety of disablement mechanisms designed to slow down the process of reconnecting them, all were rejected by the Iranians and the final agreement makes no mention of any. The JCPOA requires only that excess centrifuges and associated equipment at Natanz be disconnected and put into IAEA-monitored storage on-site. At the Fordow facility, buried deep underground, Iran is allowed to keep "no more than 1044 IR-1 centrifuge machines at one wing" installed, but not enriching uranium.
There is considerable disagreement among informed analysts about how long it would take the Iranians to get an appreciable number of these excess machines up and running, with estimates ranging from a few to several months. Whatever that length of time is, the Iranians can surely shorten it by training personnel to rapidly reactivate centrifuge cascades, modernizing equipment, acquiring new technology, and other methods not explicitly barred by the JCPOA.
The real danger is that the mullahs will put off a breakout attempt while creeping out of their vaguely worded obligations.
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Indeed, the JCPOA appears to have been drafted by diplomats who failed to imagine that the Iranians might seek to bolster their latent nuclear weapons capacity under the new rules of the game with as much guile and gusto as they did under the old. Considering that the Obama administration's one-year projected breakout time for Iran is deeply flawed to begin with, Iranian exploitation of these loopholes could bring it perilously close to the finish line even while remaining officially in compliance with the JCPOA. If the international community has less time to respond to a breakout attempt, an attempt presumably becomes more likely.
But the real danger is that the mullahs will put off a breakout attempt in the next decade or so, while creeping out of their vaguely worded obligations. With so many opportunities to escape the strictures of the JCPOA, the mullahs would be fools not to offer the minimal degree of compliance necessary to keep it in force (while continually stretching the boundaries of how minimal that degree can be). Openly exploiting the JCPOA's loopholes while enjoying its rewards will do more to intimidate Iran's regional rivals than a reckless dash for the end zone or a high-risk covert attempt, while paving the way for eventual grudging international acquiescence to the Islamic Republic's construction of a bomb.
Gary C. Gambill is a research fellow at the Middle East Forum and former editor of Middle East Intelligence Bulletin.
1d)
As the White House campaign to persuade Congress about the wisdom of its Iran nuclear deal moves into its second week, important components of the complex agreement are emerging that will be shrouded from the public and in some cases from the U.S. government itself.
The existence of these secret clauses and interpretations could undermine the public's trust in the Barack Obama administration's presentations about the nuclear pact. Already Republicans and other critics of the deal have seized on the side agreements between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency as a weakness in the deal closed last week in Vienna.
The controversy began on Wednesday when Secretary of State John Kerry told House lawmakers behind closed doors that he neither possessed nor had read a copy of two secret side deals between the IAEA and Iran, according to Representative Mike Pompeo, a Republican member of the House Intelligence Committee who was inside the session. Congress hasn't seen those side agreements either.
“Kerry told me directly that he has not read the secret side deals,” Pompeo told us in an interview. “He told us the State Department does not have possession of these documents.”
In other cases, secret understandings were provided to legislators. Congress on Monday was given a set of non-public interpretations of the Iran deal, according to House and Senate staffers who have seen the documents. These were part of 18 documents the White House provided to Congress as required under legislation passed this spring that gives Congress 60 days to review the Iran deal.
Of the 18 documents, six are classified or confidential, the staffers told us. These include secret letters of understanding between the U.S. and France, Germany and the U.K. that spell out some of the more ambiguous parts of the agreement, and classified explanations of the Iran deal's provisions that commit other countries to provide Iran with research and development assistance on its nuclear program. There is also a draft of the U.S. statement to be made public on the day the Iran agreement formally goes into effect.
Those are the secret understandings Congress and the administration have put on paper. But in the case of the side agreements with the IAEA, Congress and the executive branch may not have all the facts. In Wednesday's closed session, Kerry sparred with Pompeo, who last weekend traveled with Republican Senator Tom Cotton to Vienna last weekend to meet with IAEA officials. Those agency representatives told the lawmakers the that two secret side deals covered how the IAEA would be able to inspect the Parchin military complex and how the IAEA and Iran would resolve concerns about the possible military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program.
The briefing for lawmakers was classified, but the Kerry-Pompeo exchange was not. Pompeo pressed Kerry on the details of the side agreements between the IAEA and Iran. Kerry acknowledged he didn’t know all of the specifics.
A statement distributed by the State Department on Wednesday disputed the characterization that the agreements between Iran and the IAEA were "secret." Instead, it described them as "technical arrangements" and said U.S. experts were "comfortable with the contents," which the State Department would brief to Congress if asked.
"It is standard practice for the IAEA and member states to treat bilateral documents as 'safeguards confidential,'" the State Department statement said. "This is a principal the United States has championed throughout the IAEA’s existence to protect both proprietary and proliferation sensitive information. We must be able to ensure that information given to the IAEA does not leak out and become a how to guide for producing nuclear materials that can be used in nuclear weapons, and that countries know their patented or proprietary information won’t be stolen because they are released in IAEA documents."
But while these agreements may be standard operating procedure in the case of other IAEA nuclear inspections, with Iran it's potentially more serious. On Thursday, during an open session before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Republican Senator James Risch said his understanding was that one of the IAEA-Iran side agreements would allow Iran to take its own environmental samples at Parchin. Speaking around the specifics, Senator Bob Corker, the Republican chairman of the committee, compared this arrangement to the NFL allowing athletes suspected of taking steroids to mail in their own urine samples.
Kerry and others have told Congress that the agreement about Parchin and the understandings about IAEA inspections in general are largely technical and do not weaken a strong agreement. Needless to say, Pompeo disagrees. “Kerry gave no indications they are seeking these documents and there is no indication he is the least bit worried he doesn’t have access to this. The Ayatollah knows what’s in the deal but we don’t,” he told us, referring to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
For the Obama administration, not having copies of the side agreements between Iran and the IAEA is convenient. The law requires it to give Congress all the documents it possesses and only those documents. If the side agreements are outside the reach of Kerry, they are outside the reach of Congress and the American people.
On the other hand, that fact undermines Obama's argument that the overall deal can be verified and is transparent. Already Iranian leaders have publicly spoken about the Iran deal in terms vastly different from their American counterparts. The existence of secret understandings of that deal will only exacerbate this tension over time.
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2)-
Hillary faces dangerous enemy in the Obama administration
If Hillary Clinton were a cartoon character, she’d be Snidely Whiplash, forever muttering to herself, “Curses, foiled again.” And she’d be right.
The lady in waiting will have to keep waiting. Probably forever. Fate has spoken.
Already threatened by a growing trust deficit with voters, her would-be majesty now faces an even more lethal adversary. It’s called the truth, though she probably sees it as a vast, left-wing conspiracy.
The news that two inspectors general from the Obama administration want the Justice Department to investigate her handling of classified material is a potential game changer. For many Democrats, it will serve as final proof she is fatally flawed.
Her standing will further erode, turning her coronation plans into a long, hot summer. The drip, drip, drip of details will produce new polls showing a bleeding of support, which will entice other candidates into the race. Look for Vice President Joe Biden to jump in soon, and lefty Sen. Elizabeth Warren might also take the leap.
Meanwhile, Clinton must play defense against her former colleagues in the State Department and intelligence agencies.
Actually, it’s worse. She’s almost certainly up against the White House.
Somebody very high in the food chain leaked the memos requesting the probe. The New York Times, which broke the story, identified its source only as “a senior government official.”
My money is on Valerie Jarrett, the Obamas’ Rasputin, who is known to despise Clinton. If it was Jarrett, she would not do this against the president’s wishes.
That also would be true for any “senior government official” who leaked the memos. Targets don’t get any bigger than Hillary Clinton, so this was not a rogue operation. This was an approved hit.
Clinton has an enemies list — and it looks like she’s on Obama’s. It’s also possible the White House is using the issue to keep her in line on the Iranian nuke deal. The implied threat is “look what happened to Robert Menendez.”
Either way, she had it coming. Her arrogance and bald-face lies about the e-mails must have infuriated her boss and colleagues. Her decision to conduct government business on a private server in her home and use personal e-mail accounts was a giant “f–k you” to the administration.
When it was revealed in March that she had deleted tens of thousands of e-mails before turning over those she deemed government property, she compounded injury with an insulting insistence that she did nothing wrong. Insiders knew that was a big fat lie.
As I wrote then, Clinton’s claim that she acted out of “convenience” was hogwash. She wanted to keep her correspondence secret from Congress, the media — and also from the White House, and the people it stashed at State to watch her.
It’s obvious now she underestimated the ammunition she was providing. As a result, she has put her dream of being the second President Clinton in mortal jeopardy.
And her problems may not end with the classified issue. Any honest prosecutor looking at her e-mails would also look for evidence she traded government favors for contributions to the Clinton Foundation or paid speeches.
She and Bill Clinton were paid $25 million for speeches in just 16 months, and some of that cash came from donors and companies with business before her. Similarly, big donors to the foundation also sought help from her as secretary.
There is also serious suspicion about some payments made by foreign governments and foreign companies. Ericsson, the Swedish conglomerate, paid Bill Clinton $750,000 for a speech as it was lobbying to avoid America’s penalties for doing business with Iran, according to The Washington Times.
One place to look for information on any conflicts of interest, or worse, would be the 30,000 e-mails Clinton said she withheld on the grounds they were “personal.” She said she deleted them and her lawyer, trying to shut the door on Congress, added that the server was “wiped clean.”
That’s not something anyone will ever say about Hillary Clinton’s reputation. And now a career marked by persistent dishonesty might be nearing the finish line long before she planned.
The arc of her life demonstrates that the greatest threat was never someone on her enemies list. It was always the woman in the mirror.
Bye, bye.
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3)THE 2015 DARWIN AWARDS ARE HERE !!
3)THE 2015 DARWIN AWARDS ARE HERE !!
The 2015 Darwin Awards are finally out. The annual honor given to the persons
who did the gene pool the biggest service by killing themselves in the most extraordinarily stupid way
Last year's winner was the fellow who was killed by a Coke machine
which toppled over on top of him as he was attempting to tip a free soda out.
This year's winner was a real rocket scientist... HONEST!
Read on...And remember that each and every one of these is TRUE.
And the nominees were:
Semifinalist #1
A young Canadian man, searching for a way of getting drunk cheaply, because he had no money with which to buy alcohol, mixed gasoline with milk.. Not surprisingly, this concoction made him ill, and he vomited into the fireplace in his house. The resulting explosion and fire burned his house down, killing both him and his sister.
Semifinalist #2
Three Brazilian men were flying in a light aircraft at low altitude
when another plane approached. It a appears that they decided to moon the occupants of the other plane, but lost control of their own aircraft and crashed.. They were all found dead in the wreckage with their pants around their ankles.
Semifinalist #3
A 22-year-old Reston , VA , man was found dead after he tried to use
octopus straps to bungee jump off a 70-foot railroad trestle. Fairfax County police said Eric Barcia, a fast food worker, taped a bunch of these straps together, wrapped an end around one foot, anchored the other end to the trestle at Lake Accotink Park , jumped and hit the pavement. WarrenCarmichael, a police spokesman, said investigators think Barcia was alone because his car was found nearby. 'The length of the cord that he had assembled was greater than the distance between the trestle and the ground,' Carmichael said. Police say the apparent cause of death was 'Major trauma.'
Semifinalist #4
A man in Alabama died from rattlesnake bites. It seems that he and a
friend were playing a game of catch, using the rattlesnake as a ball. The friend - no doubt a future DarwinAwards candidate - was hospitalized.
Semifinalist #5
Employees in a medium-sized warehouse in west Texas noticed the smell
of a gas leak. Sensibly, management evacuated the building extinguishing all potential sources of ignition; lights, power, etc. After the building had been evacuated, two technicians from the gas company were dispatched. Upon entering the building, they found they had difficulty navigating in the dark. To their frustration, none of the lights worked. Witnesses later described the sight of one of the technicians reaching into his pocket and retrieving an object that resembled a cigarette lighter!
Upon operation of the lighter-like object, the gas in the warehouse
exploded, sending pieces of it up to three miles away. Nothing was found of the technicians, but the lighter was virtually untouched by the explosion. The technician suspected of causing the blast had never been thought of as ''bright'' by his peers.
Now, the winner of this year's Darwin Award (awarded, as always,
posthumously):
The Arizona Highway Patrol came upon a pile of smoldering metal
embedded in the side of a cliff rising above the road at the apex of a curve. The wreckage resembled the site of an airplane crash, but it was a car. The type of car was unidentifiable at the scene. Police investigators finally pieced together the mystery. An amateur rocket scientist.... had somehow gotten hold of a J A T O unit (Jet Assisted Take Off, actually a solid fuel rocket) that is used to give heavy military transport planes an extra 'push' for taking off from short airfields. He had driven his Chevy Impala out into the desert and found a long, straight stretch of road. He attached the J A T O unit to the car, jumped in, got up some speed and fired off the J A T O!
The facts as best as could be determined are that the operator of the
1967 Impala hit the J A T O ignition at a distance of approximately 3.0 miles from the crash site. This was established by the scorched and melted asphalt at that location.
The J A T O, if operating properly, would have reached maximum thrust
within 5 seconds, causing the Chevy to reach speeds well in excess of 350 mph and continuing at full power for an additional 20 -25 seconds.
The driver, and soon to be pilot, would have experienced G-forces
usually reserved for dog fighting F -14 jocks under full afterburners, causing him to become irrelevant for the remainder of the event.
However, the automobile remained on the straight highway for about
2.5 miles (15-20 seconds) before the driver applied and completely melted the brakes, blowing the tires and leaving thick rubber marks on the road surface, then becoming airborne for an additional 1.4 miles and impacting the cliff face at a height of 125 feet leaving a blackened crater 3 feet deep in the rock. Most of the driver's remains were not recoverable. However, small fragments of
bone, teeth and hair were extracted from the crater, and fingernail and bone shards
were removed from a piece of debris believed to be a portion of the steering wheel.
Epilogue : It has been calculated that this moron attained a ground
speed of approximately 420-mph, though much of his voyage was not actually on the ground.
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