Obama tries to explain the Iran deal. (AP photo)
Obama’s deal with Iran not only allows the mullahs to immediately start spending $150 billion on conventional weapons to foment terror and unrest throughout the region and the world, but it hardly dampens their ability to develop nuclear weapons and even requires us to help them in some ways.
The deal requires:
Co-operation in the form of training courses and workshops to strengthen Iran’s ability to prevent, protect and respond to nuclear security threats to nuclear facilities and systems as well as to enable effective and sustainable nuclear security and physical protection systems …
Co-operation through training and workshops to strengthen Iran’s ability to protect against, and respond to nuclear security threats, including sabotage, as well as to enable effective and sustainable nuclear security and physical protection systems.
Instead of hitting their program with cyberattacks, we are supposed to help them defend against such attacks.
As Charles Krauthammer points out Obama is taking the deal to the U.N. immediately, which could make opposition in Congress irrelevant.
“Whatever Congress ultimately does, it won’t matter because the legal underpinning for the entire international sanctions regime against Iran will have been dismantled at the Security Council,” Krauthammer writes. “Ten years of painstakingly constructed international sanctions will vanish overnight, irretrievably.”
Kevin McCullough, like some other pundit we know and respect, described the historic nature of this ill-begotten deal:
What only few know: According to how the agreement is interpreted, Iran may be 16-24 months from having a nuclear payload.
Not since the Munich pact when Great Britain’s Neville Chamberlain gave away the nation of Czechoslovakia to Adolf Hitler has such a monumental waste of time and energy gone into intense and necessarily serious global negotiations — only to come away with the world in far greater danger than before the talks commenced.
The failure in this case so epic that Chamberlain’s “peace in our time” ineptitude will be second place on the list of historic gaffes behind Obama’s “we kept them from getting the bomb.”
You can’t make a deal with a regime that has never kept its word on anything.
4TH ST8 
What do you expect from the current White House crew?
Old quotation, “When you send a fool, you intend to follow him”.
When I send a fool, I expect him to leave.
I presume your answer is to send the bombers?
Yeah. It’s just like Munich.
“This U.S.-North Korean agreement will help to achieve a long-standing and vital American objective: an end to the threat of nuclear proliferation on the Korean peninsula.” -President Bill Clinton (18 October 1994) Sound familiar???
Do you have a nuke shelter?
But then, it is always just like Munich, right?
So no one has a viable alternative?
Including the present administration…..no there is no viable alternative.
Every possibility sucks…but conservatives and liberals agree the present action is the worst.
http://www.reviewjournal.com/opinion/shelley-berkley-deal-works-iran-much-worse-imaginable
So what would be best?
Certainly not the current deal.
Or did you not read the piece by the former house member of the US Congress from Nevada?
Anon was me, loaded a different browser.
Turns out IE with Bing will do things and find things that Chrome and Google won’t…and vice versa.
Do I need to load Firefox too?
Browser wars are back!
And they suck just like they did back in the netscrape/internetexploder days.
Sanctions brought them to the table, so they were working. We gave up sanctions and got nothing but promises in return. Not even the release of our hostages. If Obama had wanted a stronger agreement, he would have gotten it.
Disagree, Barbara.
The sanctions weren’t working, Iran had plenty of money and business around the world, it was the oil and gas Europe wanted that made their leadership weak. If the US had held firm (possibly exporting some of our fracked oil to them), maybe Europe would have gained some backbone.
Ultimately it was our weak-ass leadership brought them to the table, Iran recognized an opening and they took it.
Sanctions had to lead to something; otherwise, it would be the same as our nonstrategy with North Korea. Steve’s strategy would have similar results. A lack of commerce with the west didn’t inhibit their quest for nuclear weapons in any way.
What’s the over and under on how many days before Iran violates this new agreement?
Dennis Prager:
We are reliving 1938. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain went to Munich to negotiate with Adolf Hitler. He left believing Hitler’s promises of peace in exchange for Germany being allowed to annex large parts of Czechoslovakia. Upon returning to England, Chamberlain announced, “Peace for our time.”
The American and European negotiations with Iran have so precisely mirrored 1938 that you have to wonder how anyone could not see it.
The Nazi regime’s great hatred was Jews. Iran’s great hatred is the Jewish state. The Nazis’ greatest aim was to exterminate the Jews of Europe. Iran’s greatest aim is to exterminate the Jewish state. Nazi Germany hated the West and its freedoms. The Islamic Republic of Iran hates the West and its freedoms. Germany sought to dominate Europe. Iran seeks to dominate the Middle East and the Muslim world.
And exactly as Britain and France appeased Nazi Germany, the same two countries along with the United States have chosen to appease Iran.
Today, people mock Chamberlain. But just change the names, and you realize that we are living through a repetition of Munich. Substitute the Islamic Republic of Iran for Nazi Germany, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for Hitler, Barack Obama and John Kerry for Chamberlain, Israel for Czechoslovakia and for Europe’s Jews, and the increasingly unsafe world of 2015 for the increasingly unsafe world of 1938.
In fact, there is considerably less defense for the Iran agreement — which awards Iran $150 billion in currently frozen assets and the right to keep its nuclear program — than there was for the Munich agreement. Prior to 1938, Hitler had not publicly proclaimed his aim to annihilate Europe’s Jews. Yet, Iran has been proclaiming its intention to annihilate the Jewish state for decades. There were no massive “Death to America” demonstrations in Germany as there regularly are in Iran. In 1938, Germany had not been responsible for terror around the world as Iran is now. Nor was Germany responsible for the death of more than a thousand Americans as Iran has been.
http://townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/2015/07/21/1938-and-2015-only-the-names-are-different-n2028003/page/full
If you like your centrifuges, you can keep your centrifuges. If you like your hidden enrichment facilities, you can keep your hidden enrichment facilities…the only difference is THIS time he actually means it!
Iran has the largest natural gas reserves in the world. Iran’s unique geographical position means 90% of the country has enough sun to generate solar power 300 days a year. Would someone explain why they need nuclear power generation? The only two entities that gain from this…are the Russians – who built their nuclear power plant, and the Iranians who use it as cover to produce a nuclear weapons cache. How about new negotiations which strive to dismantle their nuclear power plant and destroy all enrichment capabilities in exchange for the lifting of all sanctions…how about that one?
Oh wait…that doesn’t fit Valerie Jarrett’s vision for the country of her origin…my bad.
Thomas’ analogy breaks down in a critical area: Iran hasn’t invaded neighboring countries.
Brien’s point is well taken. Apparently, the mainstream media is too dim to think of it. So are the Republicans and perhaps the administration as well. I have to confess to the same stupidity as well. Didn’t give it enough thought.
Every international agreement is like Munich. Always like Munich.
In September 1938 Germany had not invaded anyone. Iran has invaded with surrogates.
So has the U.S. That must mean we are just like … oh my God!
No, they attacked us first with terrorists trained on their soil with their approval.
The only difference in Munich that I see is that Chamberlain believed he had achieved peace. I think Obama (and Jarrett) know that Iran has no intentions of giving up nuclear weapons and they could care less about the weakened position of the United States. In fact, I think a weakened U.S was one of their objectives.,
Oh, yeah, I forgot — the Iraqis were behind 9/11. That’s why we had to invade. That, and the nuclear missiles and the anthrax and the intercontinental nerve gas and the …
Boy, oh boy.
I am accustomed to the accusations that the President is a traitor who, in Barbara’s inimitable words, seeks as “weakened U.S.”
But this new meme of accusing Valerie Jarrett (the President’s fellow dark-complexioned domestic advisor) of being an Iranian spy is new to me. I would be interested in hearing more.
9/11 Commission:
“Baghdad actively sponsored terrorist groups, providing safe haven, training, arms, and logistical support, requiring in exchange that the groups carry out operations ordered by Baghdad for Saddam’s objectives. Terrorist groups were not permitted to have offices, recruitment, or training facilities or freely use territory under the regime’s direct control without explicit permission from Saddam.”
Germany invaded Austria on March 12, 1938. Munich was in September. I believe in Munich, it was agreed that Germany could invade Czechoslovakia without repercussions. The future allies also refused to act when Japan invaded Manchuria and when Italy invaded Abyssinia. 4 invasions with the acquiescence of the west. Not quite the same as today.
Austria was “annexed.”
Like the Crimea.
Boy, that’s pathetic, Mr. Mitchell, just pathetic. Can’t you do a better job of cherry picking the 9/11 report than that?
Rincon, (see this from HFBrien)
““This U.S.-North Korean agreement will help to achieve a long-standing and vital American objective: an end to the threat of nuclear proliferation on the Korean peninsula.” -President Bill Clinton (18 October 1994) Sound familiar???”
You say I somehow refer to a “non strategy” with North Korea (Bill Clinton’s non strategy?)???
The sanctions were only making Iran do business with other countries. The sanctions were only hurting the USA in the costs of energy. This “deal” does one thing for a while, lowers the cost of oils and gas the US uses. A better strategy for Europe would have been to open our reserves to export into the European union as that would have bolstered and lowered their energy costs making them less apt to take any deal with Iran to gain access to Iranian reserves.
Iran has been able to play all kinds of games with the money they have been making under the US sanctions. INCLUDING refining uranium! (not the cheapest of endeavours!)
Had this been the course the US took then HFBrien (https://4thst8.wordpress.com/2015/07/20/iran-nuke-deal-is-near-total-capitulation/#comment-58824) statement would have been more viable. (Though I disagree about Russia benefiting from this, Russian natural gas is already depressed and opening Iranian reserves to the US and European market only lowers the price Russia can command from Europe)
Got to agree with you about the Korean nondeal. The difference is that we paid and Korea benefited, while in the Iran case, Russia loses, and we save money. Although this deal will surely fall through, it’s better than the war urged by some Conservatives and does buy some time just in case we get lucky and a new Ayatollah who has a few working neurons gets installed. In theory, I agree with sending oil and gas to Europe, but we have a problem: We still come nowhere near supplying ourselves, much less them. The reason of course, is that neither Liberals nor Conservatives have any clue about the benefits of reasonable compromise.
“while in the Iran case, Russia loses, and we save money.”
But in this case we also pay and Iran gets just about everything they want. In other words, Iran benefits. US? not so much.
No, we do come very near supplying ourselves. There are several factors behind this and with natural gas we have what is now considered a glut. New drilling is about non existent. Saudi Arabia is pricing oil in an attempt to shut down new US exploratory drilling…and that is only a temporary effect. Once the price climbs again the drilling will start fast.
fuel efficient vehicles have numerous effects, lowered revenues from fuel consumption and excess fuel through lowered use pushes prices down.
No matter how it’s sliced, Iran is the winner in this deal. Our leadership? Lets just say this is no “legacy” they will want to crow about in the future….kinda like Bill Clinton and his North Korea deal. (Don’t hear much about it from Bill do we?)
Before we put sanctions on Iran, we were paying them money for oil and they were on a fast track to developing nuclear weapons. Now, we still pay them for oil, but we’ve successfully delayed their program and we stick it to Russia as well. And you say we lost? Just what did we lose?
As for supplying ourselves, I agree that it’s possible, but since it hasn’t happened, the economics and perhaps regulations must be against it. How would you engineer this great upwelling of fossil fuels in the name of defense? Allowing the export of crude would have little or no effect since we continue to import ourselves.
Iran was building a bomb 35 years ago, Rincon?
Once those sanction were enacted, 35 years ago, the USA stopped buying oil from Iran.
THIRTY FIVE YEARS OF SANCTIONS.
What sanctions do you think we are talking about?
Yes, Iran had a nuclear program 35 years ago. That’s why Israel jets bombed their nuclear facilities, remember? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Opera
We placed our first sanctions in 1979, then added to those sanctions in 1995 and 2010. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._sanctions_against_Iran At our urging, Europe squeezed them with sanctions in 2012. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93European_Union_relations#Sanctions
Another bombing by Israel has been considered unfeasible by most because many of the Iranian facilities were hardened from aerial attack.
As I said, just before sanctions began, we (the west) bought their oil and they had a nuclear program. How is that wrong?
Yes they were having a reactor built. Not bombs. From your own wiki link.
“the Osirak reactor that was bombed by Israel in June 1981 was explicitly designed by the French engineer Yves Girard to be unsuitable for making bombs. That was obvious to me on my 1982 visit.”
This is a totally different type of nuke and the costs involved in that reactor are far lower than the costs involved in making weapons grade nuclear fuel.
The two programs are very dissimilar.
You are either being intentionally misleading or plainly disingenuous.
You other wiki says almost nothing about oil. I maintain the USA was not buying any Iranian oil though it took a while and pressure from the US to get Europe to stop buying Iranian oil. Electricity is another matter, they export it. Since it is generated with natural gas that created a defacto allowance for natural gas exports in the form of generated electricity.
So the reactor wasn’t able to aid a nuclear program. OK, tell me then, why the Israelis bombed it. They were afraid of Iran having electricity? And of course, why did Iran feel the need for an expensive nuclear power plant when they sit on top of so much inexpensive fossil fuel? (thanks to Brien)
Dear Idiots – the Osirik reactor that Israel bombed in 1981 was in Iraq, not Iran.
On the other hand, they are both Muslim countries, so no diff.
Thanks, Nyp, I did miss that one!
Reading “Iran” where “Iraq” was clearly stated in Rincon’s wiki link!
damn, the mind see’s what its been conditioned to see!
“And of course, why did Iran feel the need for an expensive nuclear power plant when they sit on top of so much inexpensive fossil fuel? ”
Like sunlight, fossil fuels are really cheap (even “free”) processing that “free” fuel is not free at all.
Like Solar power it costs money and takes effort to make the “free” fuel useful.
Iran has historically had no refinery capacity worth speaking of. It wasn’t until around the late 2000’s Iran began building refineries. (Note the info from another wiki page below…Iran was blocked from buying refined fossil fuels from the west due to those sanctions) And we weren’t buying their oil.
Major gasoline suppliers to Iran historically have been India, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, the Netherlands, France, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates.[14][15] The Financial Times reported that Vitol, Glencore, Trafigura and other (western) companies had since stopped supplying petrol to Iran because of international sanctions.[16] In 2006, Vitol, a MNC based in Switzerland, supplied Iran with 60% of its total gasoline cargo imports.[14] In September 2010, Iran claimed that it has stopped importing gasoline according to the domestic capacity expansion plans.[17] This statement was later denied by the government of Hassan Rouhani.[18] In 2014 Iran will import 10-11 million liters of gasoline per day overall,[19] including 8-10 million liters of premium gasoline from India per day because some of the gasoline produced domestically does not meet the Euro-5 quality standards[20] and because of the continued fuel smuggling.
Before I reply, I have to wipe the egg off my face. What’s the big idea of telling the truth nyp? We had a great conversation going there. I have to confess that for all these years, I actually thought it was Iran.
That being shamefully confessed, the sanctions do appear to be real. As for the fossil fuels, Iran has 15% of the world’s natural gas reserves, which is great for generating electricity.