A guy sits down at the bar and orders drink after drink.
"Is everything okay, pal?" the bartender asks.
"My wife and I got into a fight and she said she isn't talking to me for a month!"
Trying to put a positive spin on things, the bartender says,
"Well, maybe that's kind of a good thing. You know, ..a little peace and quiet?"
"Yeah. But today is the last day!"
===
===
Sowell on the debate. (See 2 below.)
Is Trump's attack on Kelly the beginning of his independent run? (See 2a below.)
Krauthammer: Trump attacks Kelly and Fox because he lost the debate. (See 2b below.)
Bret Stephens comments on Obama's callous approach towards those who disagree with him.
(See 2c below.)
===
Schumer no Scoop Jackson. (See 3 below.)
===
Saudi FM lays out Iran's nuclear intent. (See 4 below.)
===
Dick
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1)
Iranian Senior Officials Disclose Confidential Details From Nuclear Negotiations: Already In 2011 We Received Letter From U.S. Administration Recognizing Iran's Right To Enrich Uranium
Iranian officials recently began to reveal details from the nuclear negotiations with the U.S. since their early stages. Their statements indicate that the U.S. initiated secret negotiations with Iran not after President Hassan Rohani, of the pragmatic camp, was elected in 2013, but rather in 2011-2012, in the era of radical president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.[1] The disclosures also indicate that, already at that time, Iran received from the U.S. administration a letter recognizing its right to enrich uranium on its own soil. Hossein Sheikh Al-Islam, an advisor to the Majlis speaker, specified that the letter had come from John Kerry, then a senator and head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Iranian vice president and top negotiator Ali Akbar Salehi said that Kerry, while still a senator, had been appointed by President Obama to handle the nuclear contacts with Iran.
The following are initial details from these disclosures; a full translation is pending.
Khamenei: Bilateral Talks Began In 2011, Were Based On U.S. Recognition Of Nuclear Iran
In a speech he delivered on June 23, 2015, Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said that the American administration had initiated the nuclear talks with Iran during Ahmadinejad's term in office, based on a U.S. recognition of a nuclear Iran: “The issue of negotiating with the Americans is related to the term of the previous [Ahmadinejad] government, and to the dispatching of a mediator to Tehran to request talks. At the time, a respected regional figure came to me as a mediator [referring to Omani Sultan Qaboos] and explicitly said that U.S. President [Obama] had asked him to come to Tehran and present an American request for negotiations. The Americans told this mediator: 'We want to solve the nuclear issue and lift sanctions within six months, while recognizing Iran as a nuclear power.' I told that mediator that I did not trust the Americans and their words, but after he insisted, I agreed to reexamine this topic, and negotiations began.”[2]
Hossein Sheikh Al-Islam: Kerry Sent Iran A Letter Via Oman Recognizing Iran's Enrichment Rights
In an interview with the Tasnim news agency on July 7, 2015, Hossein Sheikh Al-Islam, an advisor to Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani, said that John Kerry had relayed a letter to Tehran recognizing Iran's enrichment rights: “We came to the [secret] negotiations [with the U.S.] after Kerry wrote a letter and sent it to us via Oman, stating that America officially recognizes Iran's rights regarding the [nuclear fuel] enrichment cycle. Then there were two meetings in Oman between the [Iranian and U.S.] deputy foreign ministers, and after those, Sultan Qaboos was dispatched by Obama to Khamenei with Kerry's letter. Khamenei told him: 'I don't trust them.' Sultan Qaboos said: 'Trust them one more time.' On this basis the negotiations began, and not on the basis of sanctions, as they [the Americans] claim in their propaganda.”[3]
Salehi: Obama Appointed Senator Kerry To Handle The Nuclear Dossier Vis-à-vis Iran; Later He Was Appointed Secretary Of State
Iranian Vice President Ali Akbar Salehi and head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, who was restored to the nuclear negotiation team this year, served as Iran's foreign minister in 2010-2013. In interviews he has given on Iranian media since April 2014, he too claimed that the Americans initiated the secret talks with Iran in 2011-2012, and stressed his role in jumpstarting the process from the Iranian side. In a comprehensive interview with the daily Iran on August 4, 2015, he elaborated on the secret contacts initiated by the Americans. The following are excerpts from the interview:
Interviewer: “Why was Oman chosen as a mediator [in the contacts with the U.S.]?”
Salehi: “We have very good relations with Oman. When [Supreme Leader] Khamenei recently mentioned 'a respected regional figure,' he was obviously referring to the Omani leader. Oman is also respected by the West, and it had mediated between America and Iran on several previous occasions, for instance in the affair of the American mountain climbers who were arrested in Iran [in 2009]… When [Iranian deputy Foreign Minister] Qashqavi was there [in Oman], an Omani official gave him a letter in which he announced that the Americans were willing to hold negotiations with Iran and that they were very interested in solving the challenging [crisis] between Tehran and Washington. We [Iranians] were willing to help facilitate the process, and it looked like a good opportunity had come up. The 2012 U.S. elections had not yet started back then, but Obama had already launched his reelection campaign. The Omani message came just as [Obama and Romney] were starting their race in the U.S. elections, but there was still time before the elections [themselves]. At that stage I did not take the letter seriously.”
Interviewer: “Why didn't you take it seriously? Because it was delivered by a mid-level Omani official?”
Salehi: “Yes. This fact concerned us, because the letter was hand-written and back then I was not familiar with that official. After a while, Mr. Souri, who was the CEO of an Iranian shipping [company], visited Oman to promote various shipping interests and talk with Omani officials.”
Interviewer: “This was how long after the delivery of the letter?”
Salehi: “He came to me about a month or two after the first letter was delivered, and said to me: 'Mr. Salehi, I visited Oman to promote shipping interests, and an Omani official conveyed to me that the Americans were willing to enter secret bilateral negotiations on the nuclear dossier.' It was clear that they wanted to launch negotiations…”
“The Omani official whose message Souri was relaying was one Isma'il, who had just been appointed an advisor to the Omani leader and who still holds a position in the Omani foreign ministry. He had good relations with the Americans, and Omani officials trusted him [too]. I said to Souri: 'We are not at all certain to what extent the Americans are serious, but I'll give you a note. Go tell them that these are our demands. Deliver [the note] during your next visit to Oman.' On a piece of paper I wrote down four clearly-stated points, one of which was [the demand for] official recognition of the right to enrich uranium. I thought that, if the Americans were sincere in their proposal, they had to accept these four demands of ours. Mr. Souri delivered this short letter to the mediator, stressing that this was the list of Iran's demands, [and that], if the Americans wanted to resolve the issue, they were welcome to do so [on our terms], otherwise addressing the White House proposals to Iran would be pointless and unjustified.
“All the demands presented in this letter were related to the nuclear challenge. [They were] issues we had always come up against, like the closing of the nuclear dossier, official recognition of [the right to] enrichment, and resolving the issue of Iran's past activities under the PMD [possible military dimensions] heading. After receiving the letter, the Americans said, 'We are definitely and sincerely willing, and we can resolve the issues that Iran mentioned.'”
Interviewer: “With whom did the Americans hold contacts?”
Salehi: “They were in contact with Omani officials, including the relevant figure in the Omani administration. He was a friend of U.S. Secretary of State [John Kerry]. Back then Kerry was not yet secretary of state, he acted as head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In any case, we received from the Americans a positive response and message. We came to the conclusion that we could prepare [to take] further steps on this issue. That's why I asked the Omanis to relay to Iran an official letter that I could present to the officials in Iran. I assessed we had a good opportunity and that we could take advantage of it… They did so, and I presented the official letter that was received to the regime officials and went to the [Supreme] Leader to detail to him the process that had been conducted…
Interviewer: “What was the American position in the first meetings that took place between Iran and the P5+1 during Rohani's presidency?”
Salehi: “After Rohani's government began working [in August 2013] – this was during Obama's second term in office – a new [round of] negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 was launched. By this time, Kerry was no longer a senator but had been appointed secretary of state. [But even] before this, when he was still senator, he had already been appointed by Obama to handle the nuclear dossier [vis-à-vis Iran] and later [in December 2012] he was appointed secretary of state. Before this, the Omani mediator, who was in close touch with Kerry, told us that Kerry would soon be appointed secretary of state. In the period of the secret negotiations with the Americans in Oman, there was a more convenient atmosphere for obtaining concessions from the Americans. After the advent of the Rohani government and the American administration [i.e., after the start of Obama's second term in office], and with Kerry as secretary of state, the Americans expressed a more forceful position. They no longer displayed the same eagerness to advance the negotiations. Their position became more rigid and the threshold of their demands higher. But the situation on the Iranian side changed too, since a very professional team was placed in charge of the negotiations with the P5+1…”[4]
'Nuclear Iran' Website: Three Rounds Of Talks With The U.S. Took Place Before Iran's 2013 Elections
The “Nuclear Iran” website, which is affiliated with Iran’s former nuclear negotiation team and which supports the ideological camp, reported on April 20, 2014 that “Two additional conditions, out of the four conditions [set out by Khamenei], were that foreign minister [Salehi] himself not take part in the talks, and that the negotiations yield tangible results at an early [stage]. The policy for these negotiations was set out by a committee of three figures, [all of them] senior government officials, though Ahmadinejad himself did not have much of a role in it. The main strategy in these negotiations was [handing] America an ultimatum and exposing its insincerity and untrustworthiness. Before the 2013 presidential elections, three rounds of talks took place in Oman, and at these talks the Americans officially recognized Iran's [right] to enrich [uranium]…”[5]
Endnotes:
Endnotes:
[1] This is in contrast to what was implied by U.S. President Obama on July 14, 2015, when he announced the nuclear deal with Iran in a speech that began with the words “After two years of negotiations…” Whitehouse.gov, July 14, 2015.
[2] Leader.ir, June 23, 2015. Ahmad Khorshidi, a relative of Ahmadinejad's, told the website Entekhab in 2014 that negotiations between Tehran and Washington did not start during President Rohani's term. He said that during the Ahmadinejad period, there were three rounds of talks between the sides, which were also attended by then-foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi. Entekhab.ir, June 11, 2014.
[3] Tasnim (Iran), July 7, 2015.
[4] Iran (Iran), August 4, 2015.
[5] Irannuc.ir, April 20, 2014.
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2) A Debatable 'Debate'
By Thomas Sowell
The so-called "debates," among too many Republicans to have a debate, are yet another painful sign of how much words and ideas have degenerated in our times.
No one expects these televised sound bites and "gotcha" questions to be anything like the historic Lincoln-Douglas debates on the momentous national issue of slavery.
But the mob scene of candidates on stage that began with the 2012 campaign, and is now being repeated, is a big step down from the modern one-on-one debates between presidential candidates that began with John F. Kennedy versus Richard Nixon in 1960.
We still have momentous national issues. In fact, the threat of a nuclear Iran with intercontinental missiles is a threat to the survival of America and of Western civilization. The issue could not be bigger.
But this issue did not get even half the attention as was lavished on Donald Trump. Even in the earlier "debate" among the second-tier candidates, where Trump was not present, the first question asked was about Donald Trump.
Nothing could more plainly, or more painfully, show what is wrong with the priorities of the media.
A poll taken after the "debates" showed that, of the 17 participants, the top 5 were all people who had never run a state government or a federal agency. In other words, those who came out on top in this battle of sound bites were people whose great strength was in rhetoric.
After more than six years of Barack Obama in the White House, have we learned nothing about the dangers of choosing a President of the United States on the basis of sound bites, with no track record to check against his rhetoric?
Remember his promise of creating "the most transparent administration" in history? Remember his talk about "investing in the industries of the future" -- and how that led to the bankruptcy of Solyndra? Remember "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor"?
These were all great exercises in rhetoric. But before there was a track record to check against that rhetoric, voting to put Obama in the White House was like flying a plane through mountains at night. If we manage to get through the next year and a half without crashing, should we try that gamble again?
It so happens that there are some governors with outstanding track records among the 17 Republican candidates. But not one of them made the top 5 in the first poll after the "debates."
This is not to say that no one who has never been a governor should be considered. But to pick the top 5 exclusively from people with no governing experience shows how little we have learned about such gambles with the destiny of this nation.
Part of this is due to the format of these media "debates" among numerous candidates, which reduces their statements to little sound bites -- and sound bites are seldom very sound.
Part of this is due to the kinds of questions asked by the media moderators. These first two "debates" were run by people from the Fox News Channel and, by media criteria, they were even praised by their competitors at CNN. But that just shows what is wrong with media criteria.
In the 2012 "debates," moderator John King asked Newt Gingrich about his marital problems -- and Gingrich drew a standing ovation from the audience when he pointed out that the millions of people who were watching on television had not tuned in to find out about his personal life. But then as well, others in the media sprang to John King's defense, saying that any other media journalist would have asked that same question.
They might well be right. But that just shows what is wrong with the media. This year's Fox News Channel moderators included people who are fine in their own programs. But cast in this new role as moderators, their reliance on the usual media practices was a great disservice to the country at a time when there are very serious -- and potentially catastrophic -- issues in the balance.
Is this country's fate not as important as Donald Trump's antics? Then why would the first of these "debates" open with a question about Donald Trump, who was not even present?
There is plenty of blame to go around, and neither the media, the candidates, nor the public should be exempted from their share.
2a)
After the firestorm that Donald Trump ignited in the aftermath of Thursday night’s debate, a lot of pundits are questioning whether this is the moment that many Republicans have been waiting for all summer. After surviving gaffes that would have destroyed anyone else, Trump’s decision to attack Fox News’ Megyn Kelly with a vicious and misogynist slur might be the thing that starts letting the air out of the real-estate-mogul-turned-reality-star’s balloon. But it may be that those who are focusing on the impact of this disgraceful episode on the next poll numbers to come out are missing the real story here. Even if Trump’s results stay relatively strong, he was almost certainly never going to be the person the Republicans nominated for president. But what this contretemps, which led to the first instance of a conservative group shunning Trump, may really be is his first step away from the GOP and toward the independent run that may always have been in the back of his mind.
For Erick Erickson, the leader of the RedState group, to take such a strong stand against Trump by telling him to stay away from its presidential forum in Atlanta on Friday was particularly significant. Erickson has been a vocal force on the right spreading resentment of the Republican establishment, and those who follow RedState might be thought of as a natural audience for Trump’s populist message. But to his credit, Erickson drew a line in the sand that correctly noted that conservatives must stand up for “decency.”
He’s obviously right about that. Trump’s whiny and vulgar reaction to being asked tough questions at the debate was indefensible. His slimy inference about Kelly’s willingness to confront him being a result of menstruation is about as low as American political discourse has gotten in recent memory. Pressing Trump about his loyalty to his new party, asking him for evidence for some of his wild claims about Mexico and to account for his long record of vile utterances was exactly what responsible journalists ought to do to someone who entered the debate as the frontrunner in the polls. One hopes the journalists on the other networks who moderate the Democratic Party debates will be half as tough on Hillary Clinton. For Trump and his fans to attack Fox News for doing so illustrates not only his lack of understanding for the way democracy works but also displays the brittle egomania that is at the heart of his public persona.
Let’s state the obvious when we note, as so many others have done in the last few days, that behaving like a gentleman is not a matter of “political correctness.” Being a conservative is about more than anger and lashing out. There’s something to be said for the notion that the crises at home and abroad that have been mismanaged by President Obama are so pressing that we need a leader who won’t mince words. But there’s a difference between blunt talk and crude smears or unsubstantiated charges. Erickson was right to observe that if conservatives are presented with a leader that can’t behave decently, then they are going to need a new leader.
It could be that the impulse to lash out at Fox and the popular Kelly is simply Donald being Donald. He has never controlled his temper or moderated his behavior in such a way as to stay within the lines of public decency throughout his long career as a celebrity. Why should we expect him to start doing so now just because he’s running for president? It may well be that after getting away with and even seeming to profit from denigrating the heroism of a genuine hero like John McCain, his belief that the normal rules of conduct just don’t apply to him has been bolstered.
But there may be more at play here than just Trump exhibiting his standard bullying tactics against anyone who refuses to fawn on him.
Trump’s earlier warnings to the Republican National Committee that he would consider an independent run if he “wasn’t treated decently” raised the question of how he would define decently. He supplied the answer when he refused to pledge support for the winner of the GOP nomination at the debate. Clearly, any outcome other than his triumph will be viewed as grounds for leaving the reservation. His megalomania is such that he probably can’t accept losing in a fair fight or even the concept of engaging in a fair fight for the nomination. That means that it was probably always a given that the moment he started to slip or to realize that he couldn’t win would be the start of his drift away from the Republicans.
Doing so after the first debate when he is still leading in the polls is shocking. But Trump’s war on Fox News and its most popular personality is a sign that he is already starting to lean in that direction. If his poll numbers start to dip and it’s hard to believe they won’t at some point in the next few weeks, that will be the next test of Trump’s intentions. But it is even more likely that another such debacle — and the moderators at the next debate hosted by CNN will probably not be any softer on him than the Fox team — he will begin to realize that he can’t prevail as a Republican. He may even decide to go the independent route before taking a beating in primaries and caucuses rather than after absorbing such losses.
No political party was ever likely to be able to contain a Trump anyway, since nothing less than a personality cult masquerading as a party was going to be enough to accommodate his egoism or accept his bad behavior. The question facing the RNC or the other candidates about whether to condemn or to just ignore him will eventually be resolved by his flight. A third party run by Trump could hand the presidency to the Democrats on a silver platter. But Republicans can’t worry about that now as they correctly realize that their first obligation is to protect their brand against it being hijacked by a vulgar buffoon. Indeed, they may be comforted by the knowledge that more such performances by Trump will likely limit the amount of damage he can do in a general election.
Treating women — and anyone else for that matter — with respect is the least we can expect of someone who wants to be president but that is clearly too much to ask from Trump and he ought to pay a heavy price for his conduct. But rather than this just being a personal feud, this crude Trump war on Fox and Kelly is a clear sign that sooner or later he will be jumping the Republican ship anyway.
2b) Krauthammer: Trump Knew He Was Losing The Debate And "Succeeded in Taking All The Attention Away
You had on that stage very strong candidates. And if you were to take away the glitz and the buzz and all the smoke, you would have seen the strongest field of candidates that the Republicans have had in 30 years. And I think one of the reasons that at the end of the debate Donald Trump decided that he would make this into a war on the moderators, a war on FOX is because I think he thinks he lost.
If you win a debate, you don't start a war attacking the moderators and he has succeeded. He is a brilliant showman. He has succeeded in taking all the attention from what actually happened in the debate. I think the GOP will rue the day because this is a great opportunity to show off the field...
I'm worried about the GOP and changing the White House a year and a half from now. And it won't happen if these good candidates are completely obscured.
2c) All The President's Certitudes
By Bret Stephens
In a withering 1957 review of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” for National Review, Whittaker Chambers wrote that he could “recall no other book in which a tone of overriding arrogance was so implacably sustained.” Of the author’s mentality, he observed:“It supposes itself to be the bringer of a final revelation. Therefore, resistance to the Message cannot be tolerated because disagreement can never be merely honest, prudent, or just humanly fallible. Dissent from revelation so final (because, the author would say, so reasonable) can only be willfully wicked.”Which brings me to Barack Obama and his case for the Iran nuclear deal.Who is it, according to the president, who supports the deal? It is, he said in his speech last week at American University, the unanimous U.N. Security Council, the majority of “arms control and non-proliferation experts,” “over 100 former ambassadors” and “every nation in the world that has commented publicly”—with one lone exception.In sum, the forces of good, the children of light, the 99%.And who’s against the deal? A “virulent” majority of Republicans. Lobbyists funding a multimillion-dollar advertising effort to oppose the deal. Partisans and pundits. Warmongers. The people who were wrong about Iraq. Hard-liners in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. And one stiff-necked nation, Israel, which doesn’t have the wit to see how terrific this deal is for them.In other words, fools or knaves, the benighted or the willfully wicked, fighting a deal whose intrinsic benefits should be as self-evident as Bran Flakes or a good night’s rest.Much has now been written on the merits and demerits of the Iran deal. Not enough has been said about the bald certitude of its principal sponsor, or the naked condescending disdain with which he treats his opponents. Mr. Obama has the swagger of a man who never seems to have encountered a contrary point of view he respected, or come to grips with the limits of his own intelligence, or figured out that facile arguments tend to be weak ones, if for no other reason than that the world is a complicated place, information is never complete and truth is rarely more than partial.“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth,” says Mike Tyson, who knows whereof he speaks. Mr. Obama talks about his Iran deal the way Howard Cosell talked about a fight.One might have thought that, by now, the president and his advisers would be chastened by experience. Al Qaeda is “on a path to defeat” (2012). Bashar Assad’s “days are numbered” (2011). “If you like your current insurance, you can keep that insurance. Period, end of story” (2009). Russia and the U.S. “are not simply resetting our relationship but also broadening it” (2010). Yemen is an example of a counterterrorist strategy “we have successfully pursued . . . for years” (2014).And so on—a record of prediction as striking for the boldness of its initial claims as it is for the consistency of its failures. Doesn’t Mr. Obama get this? Haven’t his advisers figured out that they have a credibility issue?Apparently not. Apparently, the president figures that the politics work better when he projects Olympian confidence about his diplomacy than when he acknowledges some measure of uncertainty. Apparently, he thinks it’s wiser to tar opponents of the deal as partisans or idiots or paid stooges than to engage them as sincere, thoughtful people who came to their own conclusions. Apparently, he thinks there’s nothing amiss in suggesting that the only thing standing between the present moment and the broad, sunlit uplands of a denuclearized Iran is the Jewish state and its warmongering Beltway lobbyists.That slur in particular was the loudest dog whistle heard in Washington since Pat Buchanan said in 1990 that the Gulf War —advocated by columnists like Abe Rosenthal and Charles Krauthammer—would be fought by “American kids with names like McAllister, Murphy, Gonzales and Leroy Brown.” Then again, Mr. Buchanan wasn’t the president.It says something about the crassness of Mr. Obama’s approach that the New York Times noted that allies of the president fear he “has gone overboard in criticizing” opponents of the deal. But it also says something about the weakness of his deal. Right behind Mr. Obama’s salesmanship is a battalion of apologists who admit that the deal is a stinker but the realistic alternatives may be worse—particularly when there’s no hope of Mr. Obama’s punishing Iran should it sprint toward a bomb in the wake of the deal’s collapse.Expressions of certitude typically betray deeper insecurities. A more confident president would conciliate his critics. My suggestion: Transfer to Israel surplus B-52s plus a stockpile of Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs, and supplement the agreement with a congressional pre-authorization of airstrikes should Iran fail to open suspected nuclear sites to snap inspections.
That would show that the president means to honor both his promises and his threats. I won’t hold my breath
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3)
Chuck Schumer, Hero?
Forget Harry Reid—the senior senator from New York could be the new Scoop Jackson.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) on Capitol Hill, July 28. PHOTO: DREW ANGERER/GETTY IMAGES
Maybe it’s a sign of end times, but events have brought us to a day few thought possible: a moment in history when what America needs most is for Chuck Schumer to think more highly of himself and start speaking up.
It’s no secret that New York’s senior senator aspires to be the Democratic Party’s leader in his chamber, a position that will become vacant when Harry Reid steps down next year. Nor is it any secret that this ambition conflicts with Mr. Schumer’s declaration last Thursday night that he opposes the nuclear deal with Tehran.
But Mr. Schumer underestimates himself. Instead of aspiring to be the next Harry Reid, he is in a position to become the new Scoop Jackson. In other words, one of the select few senators or representatives remembered long after he has departed the scene.
Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson was a senator from Washington state from 1953 until 1983. Like Mr. Schumer, he was a liberal on issues from civil rights to the environment. But on foreign affairs, Jackson was an unreconstructed anti-Communist who understood the nature of the Soviet regime.
It was called Jackson-Vanik, and he introduced it in 1972 in response to the exit tax the U.S.S.R. had imposed on emigrating citizens who’d received a higher education, a tax that disproportionately hit Jews. The road to passage was rocky. In his own Democratic Party, roiled by Vietnam, Jackson’s Cold War hawkishness was increasingly out of fashion, while the Republican president, Richard Nixon, believed it was gumming up détente.This distrust of Moscow would midwife Jackson’s greatest achievement: an amendment denying normal trading status to non-market economies whose governments denied their own people the right to emigrate.
When the Soviets repealed the tax, Nixon called to tell Jackson his amendment was no longer needed. “Mr. President,” Jackson replied, “if you believe that, you are being hoodwinked.” Jackson refused to bend, and late the following year, after more back and forth, Congress passed the Jackson-Vanik amendment to the Trade Act of 1974.
The case for Congress to vote down President Obama’s nuclear deal is at least as strong. Far from undermining the legitimacy of the Iranian regime, this deal enhances it. Far from demanding that Iran show respect for fundamental human freedoms, this deal treats our two sides as moral equals. And far from making the region and the world safer, this deal puts the leading state sponsor of terrorism on a path to the bomb—and ensures an arms race by Sunni Arab states that feel threatened by a nuclear Iran.
Mr. Schumer knows all these things. Some he addressed Thursday in the statement announcing his opposition to the nuclear deal. Nevertheless, there are two other factors the senator may not fully appreciate.
First, even if he fails to kill the deal, a Schumer-led initiative against it would prepare the ground for a more realistic, bipartisan approach to both Iran and the Middle East when Mr. Obama leaves office.
Second, Mr. Schumer could no longer be dismissed as the reflexive partisan who, for example, gave Chuck Hagel, a Republican with a clear anti-Israel record, the required absolution when Mr. Obama picked him for defense secretary.
To make his mark, Mr. Schumer would have to do more than vote no. He would have to do what Jackson did in his day: To lead, to rally others to his side, and set before the American public an alternative approach for dealing with a determined and untrustworthy enemy.
Sure, the president and his supporters would howl. They are howling now, and it’s not pretty.
And sure, it was easier for Scoop Jackson to go up against a president of the other party rather than one from his own. But those who have doubts might ask Jimmy Carterwhether Jackson was afraid to buck his own president if he thought it necessary.
Among the upsides for Mr. Schumer is that he’d be liberated from having to defend policies that he knows leave the world less safe and make war more likely. He would help address the drift of a Democratic Party that booed the mention of Jerusalem at its last convention. Finally, he would be greeted as a hero by a good swath of the American electorate—and rightly so.
Manifestly, the odds are stacked against Mr. Schumer’s recruiting enough Democratic senators to get to the 67 votes needed to sink the nuclear deal. But it’s no sure thing for the White House, either. Most Americans are skeptical of the agreement; the president’s defenses are proving petulant and unpersuasive; and five weeks remain before a vote.
Here’s another way Mr. Schumer might think about it. Back when Jackson was pushing his amendment, the Senate was led by a man who would end up being the longest-serving senate majority leader in history, Mike Mansfield.
Today we remember Scoop Jackson. Anyone remember Mike Mansfield?
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4)
| Saudi FM: Iran intends to make nuclear weapons |
| The Saudi FM also said “the Kingdom is closely monitoring Iran’s quest for uranium enrichment,” and that Tehran’s refusal to allow inspectors into its nuclear facilities was a sign of its intent to go ahead with the manufacture of nuclear weapons. Saudi FM says Riyadh willing to develop relations with Tehran if Iran stops interfering in the region Kingdom is closely monitoring Iran's quest for uranium enrichment, the minister said Sami Amara Asharq Al-Awsat Tuesday, 11 Aug, 2015 http://www.aawsat.net/2015/08/article55344757/saudi-fm-says-riyadh-willing-to-develop-relations-with-tehran-if-iran-stops-interfering-in-the-region Berlin and Moscow, Asharq Al-Awsat—Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister said Monday his country will be willing to develop relations with Iran if the Islamic Republic changes its “hostile” policy of interfering in the internal affairs of the countries of the region. Speaking at a joint press conference with his German counterpart, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in Berlin on Monday, Adel Al-Jubeir said: “Iran must change its hostile policies if it actually wants to have relations of good-neighborliness and respect with its neighbors.” Jubeir said Tehran’s blatant interference in the region is responsible for the turmoil in several Arab nations, including Syria, Yemen and Iraq. The Saudi FM also said “the Kingdom is closely monitoring Iran’s quest for uranium enrichment,” and that Tehran’s refusal to allow inspectors into its nuclear facilities was a sign of its intent to go ahead with the manufacture of nuclear weapons. Jubeir’s remarks come one day before his meeting with Sergei Lavrov, Russian’s foreign Minister, in Moscow on Tuesday. The meeting is expected to concentrate on finding a solution for the Syrian crisis and discussing efforts to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) whose militants control large parts of Syria and Iraq. Russian diplomatic sources told Asharq Al-Awsat Moscow “will intensify contacts with representatives of the Syrian opposition” after Tuesday’s meeting between the Russian and Saudi foreign ministers. A delegation of the Syrian National Coalition, Syria’s main opposition group, is expected to arrive in Moscow on Tuesday. Khaled Khoja, leader of the western-backed coalition, will head the delegation to Moscow to discuss holding a third round of talks between the government of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad and the opposition. The first two rounds of the talks, dubbed Geneva I and II, failed to end the conflict in Syria, now in its fifth year. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
