'Most transparent administration evah' stonewalls Congress on Iran
Adam Kredo reports on the Obama administration's efforts to stonewall Congressional investigations into Obama's $1.7 billion cash payment to Iran.
As leading members of Congress petition the Obama administration for
answers about what many describe as a $1.7 billion “ransom” payment to
Iran, Obama administration officials are doubling down on their refusal
to answer questions about the secret negotiations with Iran that led to
this payment.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.), a vocal opponent of last year’s nuclear
deal with Iran, has been seeking answers from senior Obama
administration officials since at least late September. However,
officials continue to stonewall the senator’s inquiries, according to
senior congressional sources and formal communications between Rubio and
the State Department obtained by the Free Beacon.
Rubio and several other lawmakers have petitioned the Obama
administration for documents and information about the secret
negotiations that resulted in Tehran receiving $1.7 billion in cash and a
promise from the United States to further roll back sanctions on an
Iranian financial institution that helped finance the country’s illicit
ballistic missile program.
...
Rubio submitted a list of questions about the deal to Deputy
Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sept. 29 during a hearing aimed at
examining these payments to Iran.
Blinken finally provided answers to these questions last week, but
declined to address all specific questions Rubio posed about the secret
negotiations over the $1.7 billion payment.
While the Obama administration has maintained for months that the payment was not part of a ransom package, the Free Beacon
and other publications have disclosed in recent weeks that the United
States did engage in secret diplomacy with Iran on a range of issues,
including the release of American hostages and the $1.7 billion payment.
These issues were addressed in three separate agreements that were
only finalized once the United States agreed to provide Tehran with the
$1.7 billion payment. Secret documents stored on Capitol Hill and
treated in a classified manner show that each of the agreements hinged
on the cash payment, the Free Beacon first disclosed in October.
Rubio and other lawmakers have also sought answers from Attorney
General Loretta Lynch, who would have played a role in signing off on
the agreements. Lynch has declined to answer questions, prompting Rubio
and Rep. Mike Pompeo (R., Kan.), the incoming CIA director, to accuse
her of “pleading the fifth” before Congress.
The White House has not responded to similar questions submitted by Rubio on Sept. 10,
and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew has not answered a series of queries
posed on Oct. 25, according to sources who accused the administration of
intentionally dodging congressional oversight.
Rubio asked Blinken to provide information on any U.S. official who
signed off on the secret deals, and to specify if the agreements were
part of the formal nuclear agreement or were inked separately. He also
asked whether the deals were tied to the release of U.S. hostages.
Rubio hopes to obtain the name of the Iranian official or officials
who signed these documents. Sources familiar with the deals and secret
documents stored on Capitol Hill told the Free Beacon it is likely the United States inked these deals with a representative of Iran’s intelligence apparatus.
Blinken did not provide firm answers to any of these questions, according to a copy of his formal communication to Rubio viewed by the Free Beacon.
He maintained that the cash payment was part of a decades-old legal
dispute with Tehran before the international claims tribunal at the
Hague.
The saddest part of all this is that most of the damage Obama has caused to American interests cannot be undone, and Obama, Kerry, Wendy Sherman Valerie Jarrett, Loretta Lynch and all the rest of this treasonous crew are unlikely to ever face prosecution for it.
A Presidency that will live in infamy. #ObamaLegacy
#FeelTheBern Sanders appoints 3 anti-Israel 'activists' to write Democratic party platform, Wasserman-Schultz appoints another one as chair, and Clinton appoints... Wendy Sherman
The Democratic party has revamped the way it appoints members of its platform committee, apportioning representation based on votes in the primary. As a result, Hillary Clinton has appointed six members of the platform committee, Bernie Sanders has appointed five, and party Chaircritter Debbie Wasserman Schultz ('I wear my support for Israel to work on my sleeve every morning') has appointed four.
One of Sanders' appointees is longtime anti-Israel activist James Zogby.
Sanders’s choices include James Zogby, a pro-Palestinian activist who
is president of the Arab-American Institute in Washington and a
frequent commentator on Arab-Israeli issues.
On Saturday Zogby
noted recent government shifts under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
that consolidated his right-wing power base.
“His behavior has
been shameful, but so too is the extent to which Israelis, Americans and
others continue to enable his malevolent rule,” Zogby wrote.
The Obama administration has “repeatedly expressed displeasure over
Netanyahu’s settlement policies and his blatant interference in US
internal politics. Nevertheless the administration is now debating
whether to reward his government with a 10 year aid package valued at
$35 billion—while Netanyahu, supported by allies in Congress, is
brazenly holding out for $45 to $50 billion,” he wrote. “And so,
operating with virtually no restraints, Netanyahu continues to maneuver
and to aggressively advance his hard-line agenda. He maintains his grip
on power. Israeli society continues to become more extreme and
intolerant. Palestinians are more despairing and desperate. And peace
more remote.”
Other Sanders appointees include two other anti-Israel 'activists' - Cornel West and America's first Muslim Congresscritter, Keith Ellison.
One of Clinton's appointees is Wendy Sherman, the social worker turned nuclear negotiator, who brought us the disastrous nuclear agreements with Iran and North Korea.
And Wasserman Schutlz appointed as Chairman of the Platform Committee Representative Elijah Cummings, another member of the Hamas 54 (along with Ellison) who called for lifting the Gaza 'blockade' and letting Hamas continue to lob rockets at Israel.
Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry met during his visit to Washington
Wendy Sherman, an adviser to the US Democratic Party's presidential
primary candidate Hillary Clinton, the foreign affairs ministry
announced on Thursday.
The Egyptian foreign ministry spokesperson Ahmed Abu Zeid stated that
during the meeting Sherman listened to Shoukry's evaluations of
political and economic developments taking place in Egypt, the country's
regional and international relations, as well as the country's efforts
to fight terrorism.
"The meeting reflected the mutual wish to enforce Egyptian-American
relations if Hillary Clinton wins the US presidential elections," the
foreign ministry statement read.
Sherman noted that she was ready to transfer any message from the
Egyptian side that would enforce the US's relationship with Egypt to
Hilary Clinton, Abu Zeid said in the statement.
The name Wendy Sherman should ring a bell to all of you. A nuclear bell. In 1994, the Clinton administration signed a deal that it claimed would
stop North Korea from developing nuclear weapons. The deal was
negotiated by Wendy Sherman, the same Democratic party hack who was the chief concessionaire to Iran. North Korea abrogated the agreement when it felt able to do so, and has gone on to test nuclear weapons. Iran has participated in North Korea's nuclear tests.
Sherman is a total incompetent who was in way over her head. Even the Obama administration has no confidence in Sherman, who
is nothing but a hack. (Look how many times they sent John Kerry to Vienna during the Iran negotiations). Here's Bret Stephens in the Wall Street Journal nearly three years ago.
In 1988, the former social worker ran the
Washington office of the
Dukakis
campaign and worked at the Democratic National Committee. That
was the year the Massachusetts governor carried 111 electoral votes to
George H.W. Bush's
426. In the mid-1990s, Ms. Sherman was briefly the CEO of
something called the Fannie Mae Foundation, supposedly a charity that
was shut down a decade later for what the
Washington Post
called "using tax-exempt contributions to advance corporate interests."
From
there it was on to the State Department, where she served as a point
person in nuclear negotiations with North Korea and met with
Kim Jong Il
himself. The late dictator, she testified, was "witty and
humorous," "a conceptual thinker," "a quick problem-solver," "smart,
engaged, knowledgeable, self-confident." Also a movie buff who loved
Michael Jordan
highlight videos. A regular guy!
Later Ms. Sherman was to be found working
for her former boss as the No. 2 at the Albright-Stonebridge Group
before taking the No. 3 spot at the State Department. Ethics scolds
might describe the arc of her career as a revolving door between
misspending taxpayer dollars in government and mooching off them in the
private sector. But it's mainly an example of failing up—the
Washingtonian phenomenon of promotion to ever-higher positions of
authority and prestige irrespective of past performance.
This
administration in particular is stuffed with fail-uppers—the president,
the vice president, the secretary of state and the national security
adviser, to name a few—and every now and then it shows. Like, for
instance, when people for whom the test of real-world results has never
meant very much meet people for whom that test means everything.
Two years ago, Sherman accused Israel of making the Iran talks 'harder.'
In what appeared to be a warning to Israel, she said the United States hopes no one will interfere with the talks.
"We don't enter these talks with rose-colored glasses and we don't
know yet if we can resolve this diplomatically," Sherman said, according
to Haaretz.
"It will be critical that our negotiators and partners have the space
to get this done diplomatically. The talks with Iran will be very hard
and we can't afford to make it even harder."
Haaretz also quoted her as having stressed that Iran’s
nuclear program would have to be "limited, discreet, constrained,
monitored and verified." [All the things that it clearly isn't in 2016. CiJ]
If the Iranian nuclear enrichment program does not meet these conditions there will be no agreement, Sherman added.
She noted that the United States "would like there to be zero enrichment" but that is an "unlikely" expectation.
From social worker to Secretary of State? What could go wrong?
IAEA: Iran deal gutted agency's ability to monitor Iran
IAEA Director General Yukio Amano disclosed on Monday that the Obama-Kerry-Sherman sellout to a nuclear Iran effectively gutted his agency's ability to monitor Iran's nuclear activities. Here's an email from The Israel Project's Omri Ceren.
On February 26 the IAEA released its
first report on Iran's nuclear activity since Implementation Day, when
Iran was said to have met all of its nuclear requirements under United
Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 2231, and the international
community duly began dismantling the sanctions regime in response.
The IAEA report was supposed to confirm
that Iran had indeed met all of its commitments and continued to be in
compliance with the nuclear deal. Instead it had several gaps in places
where the IAEA had - for years and years previously - reported precise
details and numbers.
Nuclear verification experts immediately
and heavily criticized the report. That same day - on February 26 - the
Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) published an
assessment detailing how Iran might be cheating, given what was not
reported by the IAEA [a]. The list is wonkish but includes: production
of parts for advanced centrifuges, chemical conversion of 5% low
enriched uranium (LEU) to put it temporarily beyond use for weapons, and
stockpiling of 20% LEU. Then last Friday Olli Heinonen - a decades-long
IAEA veteran and the former head of the Agency's verification shop -
came out with another assessment of the IAEA report [b]. It listed
additional underreported areas of potential Iranian noncompliance,
including ways Iran might be resisting verification and monitoring
commitments.
This morning IAEA Director General Yukiya
Amano - who was giving a briefing in Vienna - got the question about
the report gaps. He described the criticism as a "clear
misunderstanding." He then declared that the nuclear deal significantly
reduced what the IAEA is supposed to report publicly about Iran:
Question [16:07]:
... After this first report for the JCPOA is released, many
international nuclear verification experts has made analysis and comment
saying that the IAEA, compared to the past report, is not giving enough
details for the international community to follow the process and
review, and I think it'ss not only the JCPOA that the IAEA is
responsible, because much of the money comes from the IAEA and will be
funded in the future for the regulatory budget as well, so for that sake
as well: how do your respond to that criticism that the IAEA this time
did not provide enough information?
...
Amano [17:42]:
Regarding the reporting. There is a clear misunderstanding. The
misunderstanding is that the basis of reporting is different. In the
previous reports the bases were the previous UN Security Council
Resolutions and Board of Governors. But now they are terminated. They
are gone. The bases of our report is the resolution of the United
Nations Security Council 2231 and the Board of Governors resolution
adopted on the 15th of December.
These two resolutions and the other resolutions of the Security Council
and Board are very different. And as the basis is different, the
consequences are different. What we are doing with that? We are
requested by the Resolution 2231 and the Board of Governors resolution
on the 15th of December
to monitor and verify the nuclear related commitments under JCPOA and
report to the Board of Governors and in parallel the Security Council.
So I will continue to report based on these resolutions factually and
objectively and including the details which the agency considers
necessary. (http://iaea-archiv.streaming.at/download/20160307_720p.mp4)
When nuclear negotiations began in late
2013, the administration asked Congress to stand down on pressuring the
Iranians, and promised to force the Iranians to dismantle significant
parts of their nuclear program if Congress gave negotiators space. U.S.
negotiators eventually caved on any demands that would have required the
destruction of Iran's uranium infrastructure, and instead went all-in
on verification and transparency: yes the Iranians would get to keep
what they'd built, and yes their program would eventually be fully
legal, but the international community would have full transparency into
everything from uranium mining to centrifuge production to enriched
stockpiles.
Now Amano has revealed that the nuclear
deal gutted the ability of journalists and the public to have insight
into Iran's nuclear activities. In critical areas it's even not clear
that the IAEA has been granted the promised access.
Remember how ticked off the Obama administration was about Israeli 'spying' on the Iran negotiations? Here's why
Remember how horrified the Obama administration was to find out that Israel was spying on the P 5+1 negotiations in Vienna? They had good reason to be upset. Ronen Bergman reports on how the West was totally fleeced by Iran.
In early 2013, the material indicates, Israel learned from its
intelligence sources in Iran that the United States held a secret
dialogue with senior Iranian representatives in Muscat, Oman. Only
toward the end of these talks, in which the Americans persuaded Iran to
enter into diplomatic negotiations regarding its nuclear program, did
Israel receive an official report about them from the U.S. government.
Shortly afterward, the CIA and NSA drastically curtailed its cooperation
with Israel on operations aimed at disrupting the Iranian nuclear
project, operations that had racked up significant successes over the
past decade.
On Nov. 8, 2013, Secretary of State John Kerry visited Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saw him off at Ben Gurion
Airport and told him that Israel had received intelligence that
indicated the United States was ready to sign “a very bad deal” and that
the West’s representatives were gradually retreating from the same
lines in the sand that they had drawn themselves.
Perusal of the material Netanyahu was basing himself on, and more
that has come in since that angry exchange on the tarmac, makes two
conclusions fairly clear: The Western delegates gave up on almost every
one of the critical issues they had themselves resolved not to give in
on, and also that they had distinctly promised Israel they would not do
so.
One of the promises made to Israel was that Iran would not be
permitted to stockpile uranium. Later it was said that only a small
amount would be left in Iran and that anything in excess of that amount
would be transferred to Russia for processing that would render it
unusable for military purposes. In the final agreement, Iran was
permitted to keep 300kgs of enriched uranium; the conversion process
would take place in an Iranian plant (nicknamed “The Junk Factory” by
Israel intelligence). Iran would also be responsible for processing or
selling the huge amount of enriched uranium that is has stockpiled up
until today, some 8 tons.
The case of the secret enrichment facility at Qom (known in Israel as
the Fordo Facility) is another example of concessions to Iran. The
facility was erected in blatant violation of the Non Proliferation
Treaty, and P5+1 delegates solemnly promised Israel at a series of
meetings in late 2013 that it was to be dismantled and its contents
destroyed. In the final agreement, the Iranians were allowed to leave
1,044 centrifuges in place (there are 3,000 now) and to engage in
research and in enrichment of radioisotopes.
At the main enrichment facility at Natanz (or Kashan, the name used
by the Mossad in its reports) the Iranians are to continue operating
5,060 centrifuges of the 19,000 there at present. Early in the
negotiations, the Western representatives demanded that the remaining
centrifuges be destroyed. Later on they retreated from this demand, and
now the Iranians have had to commit only to mothball them. This way,
they will be able to reinstall them at very short notice.
Israeli intelligence points to two plants in Iran’s military industry
that are currently engaged in the development of two new types of
centrifuge: the Teba and Tesa plants, which are working on the IR6 and
the IR8 respectively. The new centrifuges will allow the Iranians to set
up smaller enrichment facilities that are much more difficult to detect
and that shorten the break-out time to a bomb if and when they decide
to dump the agreement.
The Iranians see continued work on advanced centrifuges as very
important. On the other hand they doubt their ability to do so covertly,
without risking exposure and being accused of breaching the agreement.
Thus, Iran’s delegates were instructed to insist on this point.
President Obama said at the Saban Forum that Iran has no need for
advanced centrifuges and his representatives promised Israel several
times that further R&D on them would not be permitted. In the final
agreement Iran is permitted to continue developing the advanced
centrifuges, albeit with certain restrictions which experts of the
Israeli Atomic Energy Committee believe to have only marginal efficacy.
As for the break-out time for the bomb, at the outset of the
negotiations, the Western delegates decided that it would be “at least a
number of years.” Under the final agreement this has been cut down to
one year according to the Americans, and even less than that according
to Israeli nuclear experts.
Marie Harf and the Washington Post lie about Israeli support for Iran deal
Some of you may have seen this tweet by former State Department spokescritter Marie Harf, and the underlying article from the Washington Post, last week.
.@JohnKerry now: How the Iran deal is good for Israel, according to Israelis who know what they’re talking about: https://t.co/y8YrN3kuoM
Tharoor first mentions Ami Ayalon, a former head of the Shin Bet, Israel's internal security service, and links to a Daily Beast piece entitled "Ex-Intel Chief: Iran Deal Good for Israel."
Unfortunately for Tharoor (and
for Daily Beast commentator Jonathan Alter), Ayalon, who begrudgingly
supports the deal because it is "the best plan currently on the table"
and because he believes there are no available alternatives, nonetheless
has said in no uncertain terms, "I think the deal is bad. It's not good."
Tharoor then cites former intelligence chief Efraim Halevy, but strangely links to an Op-Ed Halevy wrote after a framework agreement was finalized in Lausanne last April but before the details of this final deal were agreed upon in Vienna this month. In a more recent (and thus relevant) Op-Ed,
Halevy described what he sees as several strong points in the agreement
and concludes that it is "important to hold a profound debate in Israel
on whether no agreement is preferable to an agreement which includes
components that are crucial for Israel's security."
He didn't explicitly state which side of the debate he favors,
although there is a sense that leans toward the idea that Israel must
get behind the deal. But like Ayalon, his tepid defense of the deal, if
it is even that, seems to hinge on the idea that this agreement makes
the emergence of any other, better deals unrealistic. "There will be no
other agreement and no other negotiations," Halevy says in his recent
Op-Ed.
What he does not say is that the deal signed in Vienna is, as a whole, "good." In an interview with Israel's Channel 2, he repeats his call for national debate, and paints a much more equivocal picture: "This is not an agreement that is entirely bad,"
Halevy said. "There are positive elements in it." Later, he added
that "this agreement has a number of very good elements for Israel, and
there are elements that are not as good." That quote, with its shades of
gray, might not make for as dramatic a headline as the one chosen by
the Washington Post.
But if equivocation is what the newspaper
has to work with, then equivocation is what it should be capturing in
its headlines—even if that means the piece can't be used by State
Department officials.
Next, Tharoor mentions Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israel's
Military Intelligence branch. It is not clear why: Yadlin, who has
cautioned against panic and excesses on the part of Israel's government,
nonetheless believes, as explained in an interview with Israel's Ynet, "This is not a good deal. This a problematic deal. You also could call it a bad deal."
Tharoor's article intially gave no hint of Yadlin's criticism of the
deal, but sometime later the author snuck in a throw-away
statement noting that Yadlin is "not a fan of the deal." (The stealth
correction appears to violate the newspaper's correction policy.)
Finally, the Washington Post blogger mentions Meir Dagan, another former Mossad chief. It appears, though, that Dagan has not gone on record
one way or another about the nuclear deal finalized in Vienna. (We
looked for any recent statements by him in Hebrew or English, and came
up with nothing. We will of course add an update if we find any relevant
commentary by Dagan from before Tharoor wrote his article.)
1. U.S. Nuclear Inspectors Are Banned From Inspecting Iran’s Nuclear Sites
...
The administration’s claim that the deal provides inspections “anytime,
anywhere” is also false. Obama’s deal allows Iran to block inspector
access to any undeclared nuclear site. As Charles Krauthammer notes,
“The denial is then adjudicated by a committee—on which Iran sits. It
then goes through several other bodies, on all of which Iran sits” and
the whole process may take up to 24 days.
2. Obama’s Iran Nuclear Deal Lifts Economic Sanctions that Could Boost Iran’s Economy with $150 Billion in Revenue
As the Washington Post
reports, “Yet another worry is that the lifting of tough economic
sanctions on Iran would provide it with as much as $150 billion in
revenue. Some of that money would be spent on infrastructure and the
Iranian people. Some of it, critics say, would go to the likes of
Hezbollah, Syrian Bashar al-Assad and Iraqi militias that no long ago
were killing Americans.”
3. The Obama Administration Admits That ‘We Should Expect’
Iran Will Spend Some of the $150 Billion in Revenues Obama’s Deal Gives
Them On Their Military and Possibly Terrorism
...
4. On the Very Week Obama Brokered His Iran Nuclear Deal, Large
Crowds Across Iran Could Be Heard Chanting “Death to America”—And Iran’s
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Declared ‘Death to America’ Just Months Ago
...
5. Obama’s Iran Nuclear Deal Does Not Require Iran to Release Any American Prisoners
...
6. Obama’s Deal Allows Russia and China to Supply Iran with Weapons
...
Krauthammer argues that “the net effect of this capitulation will be
not only to endanger our Middle East allies now under threat from Iran
and its proxies, but to endanger our own naval forces in the Persian
Gulf.” He added, “Imagine how Iran’s acquisition of the most advanced
anti-ship missiles would threaten our control over the Gulf and the
Strait of Hormuz, waterways we have kept open for international commerce
for a half century.”
7. 77 Percent of Americans Oppose Obama’s Lifting of Sanctions Against Iran
Why did Obama-Kerry negotiate such a bad deal? Because they wanted a deal at all costs. The New York Times published a shocking story last week that shows just how Kerry and Wendy Sherman were defeated every step of the way.
At
one point last week the simmering tension between the two negotiators
boiled over when Mr. Zarif felt his American counterpart was pressing
too hard. “Never threaten an Iranian!” he shouted. At the other end of
the table Sergey V. Lavrov,
the Russian foreign minister, who has had his share of disputes with
Mr. Kerry, tried to break the tension. “Or a Russian!” he said, as the
room broke out in nervous laughter.
But
during a break on one particularly discouraging March day in Lausanne,
Switzerland, where negotiations were held before adjourning to Vienna,
Mr. Zarif struck a different tone as he invoked the names of the key
figures on two sides, including Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and
the top energy officials of the United States and Iran, Ernest J. Moniz and Ali Akbar Salehi.
“We
are not going to have another time in history when there is an Obama
and a Biden and a Kerry and a Moniz again,” he said, according to notes
of the conversation. “And there may be no Rouhani, Zarif and Salehi.”
[The Iranians] understood all along that their bargaining position was superior,
because Obama needed a deal at any cost — as his critics have said all
along, he would take a bad deal over no deal, especially as he got
deeper into the process, and it became more obvious that both Obama’s
ego and political needs made backing away from the table unthinkable.
Obama and Kerry doubled down with every losing hand, until the Iranians
cleaned them out.
The NYT
is essentially saying that Obama’s top priority was collecting some
good press and personal accolades for a deal, and dumping the Iran
problem into someone else’s lap while he gets through his lame-duck
years.
Late
in the article, it is mentioned that Obama grew embarrassed about how
obvious his thirst for a deal had become, and tried telling his aides,
“I don’t need this.” The aides guessedthat he meant Supreme
Court wins on ObamaCare and gay marriage had given him enough political
cover to make delaying the Iran deal feasible.
One way to appreciate how badly America lost in this lousy deal is to look at how many side issues it doesinclude
– every last one of them a win for Iran. “Imprisonment of dissidents
and even some Americans” does not directly relate to nuclear weapons…
but neither does ICBM technology, and Iran won concessions there.
Obama’s
apologists are spinning this debacle by claiming the only alternative
was a huge, bloody war, beginning immediately. Secretary of State Kerry
actually wound up sobbing about how he had managed to avert another
Vietnam. Meanwhile, Iran is boasting about defeating “unfair” sanctions
that never should have been leveled against it, forcing the Great Satan
to acknowledge its Allah-given right to atomic power, and rather openly
stating it is still unafraid of fighting a war against what the
Ayatollah describes as the nexus of “global arrogance” in America.
Obama trying end-run around Congress to have UN approve Iran deal
President Hussein Obama is trying to do an end-run around Congress by obtaining binding United Nations approval for his Iran deal before Congress has time to vote. This is from an email from Omri Ceren.
Lead negotiator Wendy Sherman confirmed for journalists yesterday that the Obama administration will, over the next few days, pursue a binding United Nations Security Council resolution (UNSCR) that will lift sanctions on Iran. The resolution was circulated yesterday by the U.S. and a leaked text is already online. When asked how the move could be reconciled with the 60 day Congressional review period mandated by the Corker legislation, Sherman sarcastically responded that you can't really say "well excuse me, the world, you should wait for the United States Congress" because there has to be some way for "the international community to speak." She noted that at least the UNSCR would have a 90 day interim period before its mandatory obligations kick in.
The gambit undermines the Corker bill - to say nothing of American sovereignty - on multiple levels. On a policy level, the UNSCR on its own would compel American action even if Congress rejects the Iran deal. On a political level, the administration intends to take the UNSCR and go to lawmakers while they're considering the deal and say 'you can't reject the agreement because it would put America in violation of international law.'
The pushback from the Hill yesterday was immediate and furious. Corker: "an affront to the American people... an affront to Congress and the House of Representatives". Cardin: "it would be better not to have action on the U.N. resolution". Cruz: "our Administration intended all along to circumvent this domestic review by moving the agreement to the UN Security Council before the mandatory 60-day review period ends". Kirk: "a breathtaking assault on American sovereignty and Congressional prerogative". McConnell: "violates the spirit of the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015, which the President signed into law... inconceivable - yet sadly not surprising".
The Washington Post article at the bottom covers some of those statements and has a bunch of background. The story will develop throughout the day and through the beginning of next week. It's going to be particularly brutal given that the Corker legislation was created and passed to stop exactly this scenario.
Remember how we got here. The March 9 Cotton letter, signed by 47 Senators, declared that without Congressional buy-in any deal with Iran would not be binding on future presidents.
Iranian FM Zarif responded with a temper tantrum in which he revealed that the parties intended to fast-track an UNSCR that would make Congress irrelevant and tie the hands of future presidents: "I wish to enlighten the authors that if the next administration revokes any agreement with the stroke of a pen, as they boast, it will have simply committed a blatant violation of international law". That created a firestorm of criticism from the Hill. Zarif doubled down from the stage at NYU: "within a few days after [an agreement] we will have a resolution in the security council ... which will be mandatory for all member states, whether Senator Cotton likes it or not".
And so Congress responded with the Corker legislation. 98 Senators and 400 Representatives passed the bill with the intention of preventing the Obama administration from immediately going to the U.N. after an agreement and making good on Zarif's boast. President Obama signed the bill. Now the administration is doing exactly what the legislation was designed to prohibit.
In a letter Thursday, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), chairman of the
Foreign Relations Committee, and ranking Democrat Sen. Benjamin L.
Cardin (Md.) urged Obama to postpone U.N. consideration of the agreement
until Congress can review it and potentially vote on its own
assessment.
The Republican chairmen of the House Homeland
Security and Foreign Affairs committees sent a similar letter to the
White House on Wednesday.
...
In a compromise reached in May with Congress, Obama agreed not to use
his authority to waive U.S. sanctions against Iran for at least 60 days
after a deal was reached. The review begins when the text of the
agreement is delivered to lawmakers this weekend.
During that
period, Congress has the option of voting, by a simple majority, to
“disapprove” it and permanently bar a sanctions waiver. Obama has said
he would veto such legislation. For the moment, the administration is
certain it has enough votes among Democrats to prevent a veto override,
which requires a two-thirds vote in both chambers.
If a veto were
overridden — cementing Congress’s official disapproval — a State
Department official said this week that “we don’t have authority to
provide U.S. sanctions relief” and that “the deal won’t proceed.”
White
House deputy press secretary Eric Schultz said Thursday that “we will
not begin implementation of the plan until after the congressional
review period is over.” The 90-day delay, officials said, also gives
Iran time to begin taking steps to comply with the deal and allows the
International Atomic Energy Agency to prepare for its inspection and
verification role.
That's not the point. If the UN passes a binding resolution and then Congress says 'no,' then what? The whole point is to give Congress its say - essentially making any US signature on a deal non-binding - until Congress votes up or down. Obama agreed to that in May. Now he's welching on his agreement. Color me unsurprised.
UPDATE 7:09 PM
Please make sure to read the comment posted below. Obama may well be forcing Israel to be the only country in the world that objects to Iran being a nuclear power. Maybe the Saudis would like to object?
While Kerry cuddles with Zarif, Iran goes to work in the Strait of Hormuz
US Secretary of State John Kerry and chief 'negotiator' Wendy Sherman became the first US officials to set foot on Iranian soil since 1979 on Monday, when they popped into the Iranian Ambassador to the UN's New York office for a meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif.
The Pentagon said at least five Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
Navy patrol vessels approached the Marshall Islands-flagged Maersk
Tigris cargo ship at 4 a.m. eastern time as it was transiting the
Straight of Hormuz and directed the ship to proceed further into Iranian
waters.
When the ship’s master declined, the Iranian ship fired
shots across the bridge of the cargo vessel, Pentagon spokesman Col.
Steve Warren said. After shots were fired, the ship proceeded into
Iranian waters near the vicinity of Larak Island. It was boarded by
members of the Iranian coast guard and is now being held in Iranian
waters with about 30 people aboard.
...
The Maersk Tigris issued a distress call, prompting U.S. Naval Forces
Central Command to send the U.S. destroyer Farragut to the site as well
as aircraft to observe the interaction, Col. Warren said. The destroyer
is currently on the way, with no clear timetable of when it will arrive
on the scene.
The U.S. assets are being sent to “monitor the
situation,” Col. Warren said. Naval Forces Central Command have been
communicating with representatives from the shipping company, he said.
The
shipping route through the Strait of Hormuz is in Iranian territorial
waters, but ships typically pass through with no issues under rules of
innocent passage, which allow ships to pass through as long as they
follow international law.
There are no Americans aboard the cargo
ship and currently no injuries reported among the crew, Col. Warren
said. It is unclear what sort of cargo the ship is carrying.
It should be an interesting briefing at the State Department today.... What could go wrong?
The parallels are striking: China estimates N. Korea will have 40 nukes by 2016 and 75 by the end of the decade
The parallels are striking.
In 1994, the Clinton administration signed a deal that it claimed would stop North Korea from developing nuclear weapons. The deal was negotiated by Wendy Sherman, the same Democratic party hack who is now in charge of the Iran file. North Korea abrogated the agreement when it felt able to do so, and has gone on to test nuclear weapons. Iran has participated in North Korea's nuclear tests.
Now, the Wall Street Journal reports that China, which is not known for being alarmist, says that North Korea will have 40 nuclear weapons - double the number it has now - by 2016 and 75 by the end of the decade.
China’s top nuclear experts have increased their
estimates of NorthKorea’s nuclear weapons production well beyond most previous
U.S. figures, suggesting Pyongyang can make enough warheads to threaten regional
security for the U.S. and its allies.
The latest Chinese estimates, relayed in a
closed-door meeting with U.S. nuclear specialists, showed that North Korea may
already have 20 warheads, as well as the capability of producing enough
weapons-grade uranium to double its arsenal by next year, according to people
briefed on the matter.
A well-stocked nuclear armory in North Korea
ramps up security fears in Japan and South Korea, neighboring U.S. allies that
could seek their own nuclear weapons in defense. Washington has mutual defense
treaties with Seoul and Tokyo, which mean an attack on South Korea or Japan is
regarded as an attack on the U.S.
“I’m concerned that by 20, they actually have a
nuclear arsenal,” said Siegfried Hecker, a Stanford University professor and
former head of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, who attended the closed-door
meeting in February. “The more they believe they have a fully functional nuclear
arsenal and deterrent, the more difficult it’s going to be to walk them back
from that.”
Chinese experts now believe North Korea has a
greater domestic capacity to enrich uranium than previously thought, Mr. Hecker
said.
The Chinese estimates reflect growing concern in
Beijing over North Korea’s weapons program and what they see as U.S. inaction
while President Barack Obama
focuses on a nuclear deal with Iran.
In Washington, some Republican lawmakers said
the pending White House deal with Iran could mirror the 1994 nuclear agreement
the Clinton administration made with North Korea. The deal was intended to halt
Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons capabilities, but instead, they allege, provided
diplomatic cover to expand them. North Korea tested its first nuclear device in
2006.
“We saw how North Korea was able to game this
whole process,” U.S. Rep. Ed Royce (R., Calif.), chairman of the House Foreign
Affairs Committee, said in an interview. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Iran had
its hands on the same playbook.”
The pace of North Korea’s nuclear arms growth
depends on its warhead designs and its uranium-enrichment capacity, Mr. Royce
said: “We know they have one factory; we don’t know if they have another one.”
China, which
is North Korea’s largest investor, aid donor and trade partner, has for most of
the past decade underestimated Pyongyang’s nuclear capabilities, nuclear experts
said, including its capacity to produce fissile
material.
Estimates of North Korea’s capabilities by
Chinese experts began to align with those in the U.S. after 2010, and moved
beyond after 2013, according to people familiar with exchanges on the matter
between China and the U.S.
Until recently, the Chinese “had a pretty low
opinion of what the North Koreans could do,” said David Albright, an expert on
North Korea’s nuclear weapons and head of the Institute for Science and
International Security in Washington. “I think they’re worried now.”
China’s foreign and defense ministries didn’t
respond to requests for comment. Diplomats at North Korea’s mission to the
United Nations didn’t respond to attempts to seek comment. The White House,
State Department and Pentagon declined to provide U.S. estimates of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal.
“We have been and remain concerned about North Korea’s nuclear program and believe China should continue to use its influence
to curtail North Korea’s provocative actions,” said Patrick Ventrell, a
spokesman for the U.S. National Security Council.
He said the U.S. was working with other
countries to implement U.N. sanctions designed to press North Korea “to return
to credible and authentic denuclearization talks and to take concrete steps to
denuclearize.”
After all, that's worked so well until now. /sarc
In an email, the Israel Project's Omri Ceren breaks it down into politics and policy implications.
Politics -- why it will matter: The parallels write themselves. The Agreed Framework was negotiated by Wendy Sherman and the Iran deal is being negotiated by Wendy Sherman. The Agreed framework lasted a decade and the Iran deal is slated to last a decade. The Agreed Framework relied on IAEA verification and the Iran deal relies on IAEA verification. And now the North Koreans have a full-blown nuclear arsenal, which the Americans don't even know about ("U.S. officials didn’t attend the meeting but some expressed surprise when they were later briefed on the details"). It's a disaster on any number of levels.
Policy -- why it should matter even more: the Iran deal will flood the Islamic Republic with hundreds of billions of dollars, potentially including the $50 billion signing bonus. But in every meaningful sense, the North Korean nuclear program is an Iranian nuclear program, albeit beyond Iran's territorial borders. The Iranians pay for the program. The Iranians receive knowledge and technology from the program. The Iranians are on hand to observe every major nuclear and missile test. Etc. Seen in this light, the nuclear deal with Iran will become a multi-billion dollar jobs program for North Korean nuclear engineers, who will use the money to create and miniaturize more nuclear warheads, which they will then give back to Tehran. The deal doesn't stop Iran's nuclear weapons program. It finances the program.
This could yet be President Hussein Obama's second biggest foreign policy 'accomplishment'... after warming US relations with the Communist dictatorship in Cuba.
Several years ago, we heard a lot about the on-again-off-again sale of the S-300 anti-missile system by Russia to Iran. Now, with the 'framework agreement' between the P 5+1 and Iran, Russia has announced that the sale is on again. Russia is removing a ban on the sale that was imposed by Dmitry Medvedev in 2010, because after all, 'everyone knows' that the sanctions against Iran are going to be lifted.
The Russian foreign ministry says that the sale of the S-300 to Iran doesn't threaten Israel or other regional countries.
No, of course it doesn't. It just makes an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities that much harder to carry out.
Here in Jerusalem, the government is furious, blaming the sale (correctly) on the 'framework agreement.'
Cabinet minister Yuval Steinitz said the framework agreement helped
legitimize Iran and cleared the way for Monday's announcement by Russia.
"This is a direct result of the legitimacy that Iran obtained from
the emerging nuclear deal," he said. Steinitz added that the arms deal
shows that Iran plans to use the relief from economic sanctions to buy
weapons, not improve the living conditions of its people.
Why would anyone have thought otherwise?
In the meantime, US Secretary of State John Kerry is said to be 'raising objections' - but not 'deeply concerned' which is a different level altogether and is largely reserved for Israeli actions - about the deal.
Secretary of State John Kerry is raising objections with Moscow over a plan to sell anti-aircraft missiles to Iran.
The
White House says Kerry made the U.S. opposition clear in a phone call
to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (SEHR'-gay LAHV'-rahf). The
call came as Lavrov argued that a preliminary agreement over Iran's
nuclear program made a 2010 ban on sending missiles to Iran no longer
necessary.
White House press
secretary Josh Earnest indicated the move could endanger plans to
ultimately lift sanctions on Iran as part of a final nuclear deal. He
says unity and coordination with nations like Russia is critical to the
success of the negotiations.
The
agreement is supposed to be finalized by June 30. There is no firm
agreement yet on how or when to lift the international sanctions on
Iran.
But Kerry's chief negotiator and military tactician, the 'brilliant' Wendy Sherman, says that a military strike on Iran wouldn't succeed anyway.
Sherman told the reporters that a military operation against Iran would
not stop its nuclear program. "A military strike by Israel or the U.S.
would only set back the nuclear program by two years," she said. "You
can't bomb their nuclear know-how, and they will rebuild everything. The
alternatives are there but the best option is a diplomatic negotiated
solution."
Well, yeah, you assume that they have the resources with which to rebuild and they are left alone to do so. But why would anyone assume that to be true?
"We need to provide ISIS with good paying jobs"
-- Spokesperson Marie Harf
There should be at least 1 available today at the State Dept.
— WH PRESS SECRETARY (@weknowwhatsbest) February 17, 2015
MATTHEWS: How do we stop this? I don’t see it. I see the
Shia militias coming out of Baghdad who are all Shia. The Sunnis hate
them. The Sunnis are loyal to ISIS rather than going in with the Shia.
You’ve got the Kurds, the Jordanian air force and now the Egyptian air
force. But i don’t see any — If i were ISIS, I wouldn’t be afraid right
now. I can figure there is no existential threat to these people. They
can keep finding places where they can hold executions and putting the
camera work together, getting their props ready and killing people for
show. And nothing we do right now seems to be directed at stopping this.
HARF: Well, I think there’s a few stages here. Right now what we’re
doing is trying to take their leaders and their fighters off the
battlefield in Iraq and Syria. That’s really where they flourish.
MATTHEWS: Are we killing enough of them?
HARF: We’re killing a lot of them and we’re going to keep
killing more of them. So are the Egyptians, so are the Jordanians.
They’re in this fight with us. But we cannot win this war by killing
them. We cannot kill our way out of this war. We need in the medium to
longer term to go after the root causes that leads people to join these
groups, whether it’s lack of opportunity for jobs, whether —
MATTHEWS: We’re not going to be able to stop that in our lifetime or
fifty lifetimes. There’s always going to be poor people. There’s always
going to be poor muslims, and as long as there are poor Muslims, the
trumpet’s blowing and they’ll join. We can’t stop that, can we?
HARF: We can work with countries around the world to help improve
their governance. We can help them build their economies so they can
have job opportunities for these people…
Many things about this story trouble me. I suppose the most troubling
thing is that she started her career in DC as a Middle East analyst for
the CIA. Let that sink in.
Two comments:
1. Who's more dangerous to the Western civilization? Marie Harf or Wendy Sherman?
Sherman is a total incompetent who is in way over her head. In fact, one
has to wonder whether the real reason that Kerry rushed to Geneva last
weekend was because the administration has no confidence in Sherman, who
is nothing but a hack. Here's Bret Stephens in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week.
In 1988, the former social worker ran the
Washington office of the
Dukakis
campaign and worked at the Democratic National Committee. That
was the year the Massachusetts governor carried 111 electoral votes to
George H.W. Bush's
426. In the mid-1990s, Ms. Sherman was briefly the CEO of
something called the Fannie Mae Foundation, supposedly a charity that
was shut down a decade later for what the
Washington Post
called "using tax-exempt contributions to advance corporate interests."
From
there it was on to the State Department, where she served as a point
person in nuclear negotiations with North Korea and met with
Kim Jong Il
himself. The late dictator, she testified, was "witty and
humorous," "a conceptual thinker," "a quick problem-solver," "smart,
engaged, knowledgeable, self-confident." Also a movie buff who loved
Michael Jordan
highlight videos. A regular guy!
Later Ms. Sherman was to be found working
for her former boss as the No. 2 at the Albright-Stonebridge Group
before taking the No. 3 spot at the State Department. Ethics scolds
might describe the arc of her career as a revolving door between
misspending taxpayer dollars in government and mooching off them in the
private sector. But it's mainly an example of failing up—the
Washingtonian phenomenon of promotion to ever-higher positions of
authority and prestige irrespective of past performance.
This
administration in particular is stuffed with fail-uppers—the president,
the vice president, the secretary of state and the national security
adviser, to name a few—and every now and then it shows. Like, for
instance, when people for whom the test of real-world results has never
meant very much meet people for whom that test means everything.
2. Harf at least has the excuse that she's blonde - Sherman's hair is white so you can't really tell what it used to be. Heh.
P 5+1 allowing Iran to do whatever it pleases with its nuclear program
This is way too long to excerpt but Omri Ceren reviews the history of the P 5+1 'negotiations' with Iran and concludes that the Obama administration has given away the store.
President Hussein Obama may not have red lines, but Iran sure does. The Iranians have made it quite clear - again - that they will not negotiate over their ballistic missile program. I received this via email from The Israel Project.
A top Iranian official reiterated on Wednesday that
Tehran will refuse to discuss its ballistic missile program in the
context of comprehensive negotiations over its nuclear program with the
international community, the latest in a long line of statements underlining that the Islamic republic views the issue as a red line.
The dispute has the potential to impact the domestic policy debate in
the United States both substantively and politically. Substantively, the
issue is tangled up in a broader debate over the degree to which Iran
will be forced to account for or roll back suspected military dimensions
of its atomic program. Iranian negotiators had this week sought already
to delay discussions wholesale of
all such dimensions, which range from warhead development to the
involvement of the Iranian military in uranium production. Politically
an outright Iranian refusal is likely to erode confidence in the Obama
administration's diplomatic nimbleness. Iranian negotiators had managed
to exclude mention of Iran's missile program from the interim Joint
Action Plan (JPA), an omission that White House figures justified to
lawmakers and journalists as justified for the sake of building
momentum. Lead U.S. diplomacy, including lead negotiator Undersecretary
of State Wendy Sherman, instead insisted that Iran's ballistic missile program would be addressed in comprehensive negotiations.
And now that the sanctions are effectively gone, Iran just has so many incentives to make that concession....
This is not a parody: Obama's nuclear negotiator pleads with Israel to stop making talks harder
We've already established that President Hussein Obama's chief nuclear negotiator, Wendy Sherman, is an incompetent hack, who is in way over her head.
Sherman is a total incompetent who is in way over her head. In fact, one
has to wonder whether the real reason that Kerry rushed to Geneva last
weekend was because the administration has no confidence in Sherman, who
is nothing but a hack. Here's Bret Stephens in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week.
In 1988, the former social worker ran the
Washington office of the
Dukakis
campaign and worked at the Democratic National Committee. That
was the year the Massachusetts governorcarried 111 electoral votes to
George H.W. Bush's
426. In the mid-1990s, Ms. Sherman was briefly the CEO of
something called the Fannie Mae Foundation, supposedly a charity that
was shut down a decade later for what the
Washington Post
called "using tax-exempt contributions to advance corporate interests."
From
there it was on to the State Department, where she served as a point
person in nuclear negotiations with North Korea and met with
Kim Jong Il
himself. The late dictator, she testified, was "witty and
humorous," "a conceptual thinker," "a quick problem-solver," "smart,
engaged, knowledgeable, self-confident." Also a movie buff who loved
Michael Jordan
highlight videos. A regular guy!
Later Ms. Sherman was to be found working
for her former boss as the No. 2 at the Albright-Stonebridge Group
before taking the No. 3 spot at the State Department. Ethics scolds
might describe the arc of her career as a revolving door between
misspending taxpayer dollars in government and mooching off them in the
private sector. But it's mainly an example of failing up—the
Washingtonian phenomenon of promotion to ever-higher positions of
authority and prestige irrespective of past performance.
Now, this complete failure has come to Israel to urge our government not to make 'negotiations' with Iran 'harder.'
In what appeared to be a warning to Israel, she said the United States hopes no one will interfere with the talks.
"We don't enter these talks with rose-colored glasses and we don't
know yet if we can resolve this diplomatically," Sherman said, according
to Haaretz.
"It will be critical that our negotiators and partners have the space
to get this done diplomatically. The talks with Iran will be very hard
and we can't afford to make it even harder."
Haaretz also quoted her as having stressed that Iran’s
nuclear program would have to be "limited, discreet, constrained,
monitored and verified."
If the Iranian nuclear enrichment program does not meet these conditions there will be no agreement, Sherman added.
She noted that the United States "would like there to be zero enrichment" but that is an "unlikely" expectation.
The most pro-Israel administration evah? What could go wrong?
Menendez: Sanctions after talks fail might be too late
Questioning the United States' chief nuclear negotiator Wendy Sherman (pictured above) on Tuesday, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chief Robert Menendez (D-NJ) suggested that imposing sanctions on Iran after nuclear talks fail might be too late.
Questioning Wendy Sherman, the chief US negotiator with Iran, Menendez
(D-NJ) noted that Iran's continued nuclear-related research and
development would shorten the window of time required by the Islamic
Republic to produce a nuclear weapon— even as negotiations take place.
"In reality, the only effect we have is over time," Menendez said. "To
enforce sanctions then would be far beyond the scope or the window."
"It's not simply about passing sanctions," Menendez added. "It's about the timeframe necessary to have them be effective."
In his fifth State of the Union address, the president said he would be
the first man in Washington to call for new sanctions if Iran fails to
agree to a comprehensive nuclear accord satisfactory to the US and its
allies.
In the same speech, he promised to veto any new sanctions legislation
that might compromise the diplomatic process. Menendez introduced just
such a bill in December that he described as an "insurance policy" for
Congress. That bill has earned 59 cosponsors across party lines.
Midway through the hearing, Menendez pushed back against the Obama
administration for referring to his strategy as tantamount to a "march
to war," a phrase stated multiple times by Jay Carney, the White House
press secretary, after the bill's rollout.
"I don't believe any of you, any senator, any member of the House are
warmongers. I don't believe anyone prefers war," Sherman agreed.
"Tactical considerations may lead us to that choice. But that is an
issue of tactics, not an issue of intent."
Senior officials in the administration of President Barack Obama have
conceded over the past few days in conversations with colleagues in
Israel that the value of the economic sanctions relief to Iran could be
much higher than originally thought in Washington, security sources in
Israel told Haaretz.
In official statements by the United States
immediately after the agreement limiting Iran’s nuclear program was
signed in Geneva between Iran and
the six powers at the end of November it was said that the economic
relief Iran would receive in exchange for signing the agreement would be
relatively low – $6 billion or $7 billion. Israeli assessments were much higher – about $20 billion at least.
The United States had originally intended to make do
with unfreezing Iranian assets in the amount of $3 billion to $4
billion. But during negotiations in Geneva, the P5+1 countries
backtracked from their opening position and approved much more
significant relief in a wide variety of areas: commerce in gold, the
Iranian petrochemical industry, the car industry and replacement parts
for civilian aircraft. But the Americans said at the time that this
would at most double the original amount.
However according to the Israeli version, the
Americans now concede in their talks with Israel that the sanctions
relief are worth much more. According to the security sources:
“Economics is a matter of expectations. The Iranian stock exchange is
already rising significantly and many countries are standing in line to
renew economic ties with Iran based on what was already agreed in
Geneva.” The sources mentioned China’s desire to renew contracts worth
some $9 billion to develop the Iranian oil industry and the interest
some German companies are showing for deals with Tehran. “In any case,
it’s about 20 or 25 billion dollars. Even the Americans understand
this,” the sources said.
One of the problems with the Obama administration that has never been addressed is a basic lack of competence. It starts with Obama himself, who was and is too inexperienced to be President, and it continues with appointments that didn't even consider whether the appointee was suitable for the position (Van Jones, Chas Freeman, Janet Napolitano, Wendy Sherman, and yes, John Kerry, all come to mind off the top of my head).
It's clear that Obama's negotiators didn't do their homework before showing up in Geneva. And they expect Israel to pay the price.
'This administration like Neville Chamberlain is yielding a large and bloody conflict in the Middle East involving Iranian nuclear weapons'
Here's a full transcript of Senator Mark Kirk (R-Il)'s remarks after the Kerry-Sherman presentation to the Senate Banking Committee earlier this week. It's brutal.
Sen. Kirk: …that it was fairly anti-Israeli that I was
supposed to disbelieve everything that the Israelis had just told me.
And I don’t. I think the Israelis probably have a pretty good
intelligence service.
Question: What did the Israelis just tell you?
Sen. Kirk: They told us that the total changes proposed set back the program about 24 days.
Question: Oh wow. And in exchange they get what?
Sen. Kirk: They get billions in gold.
Question: Billions in gold and also humanitarian stuff?
Sen. Kirk: What I’m going to start doing is add up the financial
incentives and divide it by the number of Iranians and seeing how much
money per Iranian is it. I asked the Secretary if you add it all, how
much per Iranian citizen is this? He didn’t know. The one thing I did, I
started questioning Wendy Sherman about her record on North Korea and
she surprisingly defended it to me.
Question: Really? What’s her defense? I’m wearing my North Korea flag pin today.
Sen. Kirk: There is no defense. After Wendy led the effort to give
North Korea nuclear reactors and food, her record on North Korea is a
total failure and an embarrassment to her service.
Question: And you think that speaks to her handling of the Iran…?
Sen. Kirk: Yea, she started to defend using very precise legal words, saying “we haven’t had any plutonium production in..”
Question: So you’re saying that the administration is not representing…?
Sen. Kirk: The point that Wendy wants you to forget her service on North Korea. You shouldn’t allow her to.
Question: Okay I won’t. What about, do you think the administration has lost credibility on this?
Sen. Kirk: A lot, very low credibility, I would say.
Question: What about sanctions on the defense bill?
Sen. Kirk: I’ll use every method I have as a Senator.
Question: Do you think the banking committee will move forward?
Sen. Kirk: I think today is the day in which I witnessed a feature of
nuclear war in the Middle East in the future someday that will be part
of our children’s heritage. This administration like Neville Chamberlain
is yielding a large and bloody conflict in the Middle East involving
Iranian nuclear weapons that will now be part of our children’s future.
And the best way to prevent that from happening is to continue sanctions
which Secretary Kerry goes on and on about how effective. What I told
Bob Menendez was the administration is sitting at a negotiating table
that was built by the Congress. Without the Congress having tough
sanctions, the Iranians would walk away.
Question: Do you think there’s the votes in the Senate to attach Iran sanctions to the defense authorization bill?
Sen. Kirk: I do in fact. I think overwhelmingly if it was given a
vote 90% of the Senate would vote for it as they did last time. All we
would do is remind Senators that every single Senator voted for
Menendez-Kirk.
Question: What made you move to the conclusion that we witnessed the beginning of the potential nuclear war in the Middle East?
Sen. Kirk: That the administration is not going to act in the best
way to prevent nuclear war in the Middle East. Right when the Iranians
are…you know, how do you define an Iranian moderate? It’s an Iranian who
is out of bullets or out of money.
Question: What was the exact source for the 24 days, can you elaborate?
Sen. Kirk: That was the Israelis, the Israelis gave that to me this
morning. And the administration very disappointingly said discount what
the Israelis say and I think that was wrong as a policy matter. I think
the Israelis have a very good intelligence service.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
