NY Times: If Iran talks fail, it's Bibi's fault
Layers of sanctions, imposed separately since 2006 by the United Nations Security Council, the United States and Europe, have been largely responsible for moving Iran to the point of serious negotiations. Constrained from selling oil, its main moneymaker, and boxed out of the international financial system, Iran is reeling economically. Oil export earnings have fallen from a range between $110 billion and $120 billion annually to a range of $40 billion to $50 billion, of which about half is available to the government. Hassan Rouhani, elected president earlier this year, believes he has a popular mandate — as well as support from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader — to seek an easing of these sanctions through negotiations.
Even so, Israel, groups like the Washington, D.C.-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies and lawmakers like Senator Mark Kirk, Republican of Illinois, want to ratchet up the pressure. Their stated aim is to force Iran to completely dismantle its nuclear program.
From a Western perspective, that would be an ideal outcome. But new sanctions are unlikely to force Iran to abandon an enterprise in which it has invested billions of dollars and a great deal of national pride. Fresh sanctions would also shred whatever little good will the United States and Iran have begun to rekindle. If Tehran walks away from the talks, Washington will be blamed, the international unity supporting the network of sanctions already in place will unravel, and countries that have reduced imports of oil from Iran will find fewer reasons to continue doing so.
Notice all the 'coulds' particularly in that last paragraph. So inside the Times wants the US to dismantle the sanctions with its own hands and make sure that Iran has a clear path to the bomb. And if that doesn't happen it's blaming - who else - Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu.The Iranians could conclude that America is determined to overthrow their entire system, and, as a result, accelerate efforts to build a nuclear bomb. This, in turn, could end up leading to American military action (Mr. Obama has said Iran will not be allowed to acquire a weapon), engaging a war-weary America in yet another costly conflict and further destabilizing the region, while setting Iran’s nuclear program back by only a few years.
President Obama deserves more time to work out a negotiated settlement with Iran and the other major powers. If the deals falls through, or if inspections by the United Nations unearth cheating, Congress can always impose more sanctions then. But if talks fail now, Mr. Netanyahu and the hard-line interest groups will own the failure, and the rest of us will pay the price.Home Front Defense Minister Gilad Erdan came to Netanyahu's defense in an op-ed that - it goes without saying wasn't printed by the Times - entitled Precisely the time to squeeze Iran.
But success must be measured by what diplomacy achieves. The goal is to end Iran’s nuclear weapons program. A deal should be a means to that end and not an end in itself.On Iran, at least, there is still hope that the Prime Minister will have sufficient backbone to stand up to Obama. And if they fail because Obama negotiated a bad deal for the sake of making a deal, the blame should be laid at Obama's doorstep.
The deal on the table (the details of which have been widely reported) makes more likely the very two outcomes its proponents seek to prevent – a nuclear-armed Iran or the use of force against Iran’s nuclear weapons infrastructure before it’s too late.
Some claim that the proposed deal will require Iran to freeze its nuclear program for six months in exchange for mild sanctions relief. Neither assumption will hold.
To freeze its program, Iran would not only have to stop the construction of its plutonium-producing heavy water reactor and add no further centrifuges. It would also have to halt all uranium enrichment, which Iran refuses to do. An agreement that allows Iran to continue enrichment of material for nuclear bombs while talks go on will not freeze Iran's nuclear program.
Nor is the sanctions relief mild. Allowing the Iranian regime access to billions of dollars would significantly ease the very pressure that has brought Iran to the table in the first place. In a tanking economy like Iran’s, these changes will make a big difference. The current sanctions regime took years to put in place and is likely to fray quickly once the proposed deal kicks in.
Thus this "first step" agreement would leave Iran closer to nuclear weapons and under less pressure not to produce them.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: anti-Israel media bias, Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Gilad Erdan, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli attack on Iran, liberal media bias, New York Times, P 5+1
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:30 AM
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