'The idea that a better deal was available is a fantasy'
US Secretary of State John Kerry went on PBS on Friday to defend his sellout to Iran.Let's go to the videotape.
Kerry had a 'difficult' discussion with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu on Thursday (which is also described in the video). Haaretz's Barak Ravid reports.
State Department Spokesman John Kirby told reporters Thursday evening that during the conversation, Netanyahu "expressed his concerns, many of the same concerns that he has expressed publicly. Secretary Kerry walked the prime minister through the reasons why we believe this is the right deal, it’s a good deal – not just for our national security interests, but the national security interests of the Israeli people and the Government of Israel, as well as our allies and partners in the region.”
Kerry told PBS that Netanyahu and other detractors of the agreement had not presented an alternative. “They all say, ‘Oh, why didn’t you crush them with the sanctions?’ I will tell you why. Because they won’t be crushed by sanctions. That’s been proven. And because we will lose the other people who are helping to provide those sanctions. They are not going to do that if Iran is willing to make a reasonable agreement. So, there is a lot of fantasy out there about this – quote – 'better deal.'"It may well be that a better deal was not available, but that could well be because Obama and Kerry were so desperate for a deal that they were not willing to walk away regardless of what happened. And Obama and Kerry promised that if only a bad deal were available, they would walk away. Iran saw how desperate Obama and Kerry were and took advantage of it.
Moreover, when the interim deal was signed at the end of 2013, the sanctions were just starting to bite and Iran was getting desperate. So it's more than a little disingenuous to say that no better deal was available and that Iran could not be crushed by sanctions when the administration didn't even try that option. Instead, it entered into the interim agreement and lifted the sanctions, allowing Iran to survive.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, John Kerry, P 5+1
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:27 PM
1 Comments:
Maybe Kerry and Obama didn't realize that you have to ACT convincingly as if you will walk away from the table, and they never did. It was obvious from their public comments throughout the process that they had taken military action off the table, and that getting a deal was all that mattered. Had they bothered to keep their ruminations to themselves, things might have at least had the potential to end very differently. That they didn't isn't the result of incompetence, but of design, I think.
Post a Comment
<< Home