Think tank: P 5+1 secretly allowed Iran to evade nuke restrictions to allow sanctions to be lifted
The
Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security reports that the United States and its partners agreed "in secret"
to allow Iran to evade some restrictions in last year's landmark nuclear
agreement in order to meet the deadline for it to start getting relief
from economic sanctions.
The group's president David Albright, a
former U.N. weapons inspector, said that, "the exemptions or loopholes are happening in secret, and it appears that they favor Iran."
Among the exemptions were two that allowed
Iran to exceed the deal's limits on how much low-enriched uranium (LEU)
it can keep in its nuclear facilities, the report said. LEU can be
purified into highly enriched, weapons-grade uranium.
The
exemptions, the report said, were approved by the joint commission the
deal created to oversee implementation of the accord. The commission is
comprised of the United States and its negotiating partners -- called
the P5+1 -- and Iran.
One senior
"knowledgeable" official was cited by the report as saying that if the
joint commission had not acted to create these exemptions, some of
Iran’s nuclear facilities would not have been in compliance with the
deal by Jan. 16, the deadline for the beginning of the lifting of
sanctions.
The U.S. administration
has said that the world powers that negotiated the accord -- the United
States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany -- made no secret
arrangements.
A White House
official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the joint commission
and its role were "not secret." He did not address the report's
assertions of exemptions.
The report says that Congress was notified of the exemptions... after they went into effect. But two key Senators - Republican Bob Corker and Democrat Robert Menendez deny being briefed on the exemptions.
But it gets worse. You see, not only was Iran exempted from the requirement to reduce its LEU... but no one even knows by how much.
As part of the concessions that allowed Iran
to exceed uranium limits, the joint commission agreed to exempt unknown
quantities of 3.5 percent LEU contained in liquid, solid and sludge
wastes stored at Iranian nuclear facilities, according to the
report. The agreement restricts Iran to stockpiling only 300 kg of 3.5
percent LEU.
The commission
approved a second exemption for an unknown quantity of near 20 percent
LEU in "lab contaminant" that was determined to be unrecoverable, the
report said. The nuclear agreement requires Iran to fabricate all such
LEU into research reactor fuel.
If
the total amount of excess LEU Iran possesses is unknown, it is
impossible to know how much weapons-grade uranium it could yield,
experts said.
And there's more:
The draft report said the joint commission
also agreed to allow Iran to keep operating 19 radiation containment
chambers larger than the accord set. These so-called "hot cells" are
used for handling radioactive material but can be "misused for secret,
mostly small-scale plutonium separation efforts," said the report.
Plutonium is another nuclear weapons fuel.
The
deal allowed Iran to meet a 130-tonne limit on heavy water produced at
its Arak facility by selling its excess stock on the open market. But
with no buyer available, the joint commission helped Tehran meet the
sanctions relief deadline by allowing it to send 50 tonnes of the
material -- which can be used in nuclear weapons production -- to Oman,
where it was stored under Iranian control, the report said.
The
shipment to Oman of the heavy water that can be used in nuclear weapons
production has already been reported. Albright's report made the new
assertion that the joint committee had approved this concession.
Wow....
You can bet that now that it's more than a year and a half later, Hillary Clinton's response will be 'what difference does it make now?' But it still does make a difference. Clinton supports the deal. Trump says he will 'renegotiate' it. Okay, I will grant that renegotiating the deal after all that money is out the door only has a chance of solving the nuclear weapons problem, and not the terror money problem. But at some point, actions have to have consequences.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Bob Corker, Hillary Clinton, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, John Kerry, Robert Menendez, uranium enrichment
Iran deploys S-300 to protect Fordo nuke plant, forms Shiite army to eradicate Israel
Here's Barack Obama's legacy. After allowing Iran's nuclear program to survive and thrive and giving the Mullahcracy $1.7 billion in spending money, Iran is using the money exactly how it promised to use it. It has deployed an
S-300 missile system to protect its Fordo nuclear plant, and it has formed a Shiite army
whose goal is to eradicate Israel. This is from the first link.
A video showed an S-300 carrier truck in Fordo, raising its missile launchers toward the sky, next to other counter-strike weaponry.
The images were aired hours after supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei gave a speech to air force commanders, including Esmaili, in which he stressed that Iranian military power was for defensive purposes only.
"Continued opposition and hype on the S-300 or the Fordo site are examples of the viciousness of the enemy," Khamenei said.
"The S-300 system is a defence system not an assault one, but the Americans did their best for Iran not to get hold of it."
The Fordo site, built into a mountain near the city of Qom has stopped enriching uranium since the January implementation of a nuclear deal with world powers.
Under the historic accord, Iran dismantled most of its estimated 19,000 centrifuges -- giant spinning machines that enrich uranium, keeping only 5,000 active for research purposes.
Maybe for a few years anyway....
In the meantime, Iran has not given up on
eradicating Israel.
Retired General Mohammad Ali Falaki, who is currently one of the Iranian
forces leaders in Syria, has recently revealed that Iran has formed a
“Shiite Liberation Army” led by Quds Force commander, General Qassem
Soleimani.
The Quds Force also known as Pasdaran in Persian is
a special forces unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and
is responsible for the Islamic Republic’s extraterritorial operation.
“The Shiite Liberation Army is currently fighting on three fronts -
Iraq, Syria and Yemen,” he told Mashregh news agency, which is close to
the IRGC, in an interview published on Thursday.
The retired
general said “This army is not only composed of Iranians but it recruits
locally from the regions witnessing fighting.”
Falaki, who is
leading part of the IRGC fight in Syria to give support to Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, advised that it was “not wise to
directly involve Iranian forces into the Syrian conflict.”
“The
role of our personnel should be limited to training, preparing and
equipping the Syrians to fight in their areas, ” he added.
Falaki said that the main objective behind the formation of the first
nucleus of the ‘Shiite Liberation Army’ is to “eradicate Israel after 23
years, especially that these battalions are now on Israeli borders.”
#ThanksObama
And you were still wondering why he hasn't taken the fight to Assad?
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Bashar al-Assad, Fordow nuclear plant, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran sanctions regime, Obama's legacy, S-300 missile defense system, Syria, uranium enrichment
'Secret' appendix to JCPOA cuts Iran's 'breakout' time to six months
If you thought President Obama and the P5+1 made a bad deal with Iran, it just got a bit worse.
An anonymous diplomat has shared with the Associated Press a secret appendix to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) which removes many of the limitations on Iran's uranium enrichment activities
about ten years from now. And the result cuts Iran's 'breakout' time from what's claimed to be a year to six months or less.
The confidential document is the only text linked to last year's deal
between Iran and six foreign powers that hasn't been made public,
although U.S. officials say members of Congress who expressed interest
were briefed on its substance. It was given to the AP by a diplomat
whose work has focused on Iran's nuclear program for more than a decade,
and its authenticity was confirmed by another diplomat who possesses
the same document.
Both demanded anonymity because they were not authorized to share or discuss the document.
The diplomat who shared the text with the AP described it as an
add-on agreement to the nuclear deal in the form of a document submitted
by Iran to the International Atomic Energy Agency outlining its plans
to expand its uranium enrichment program after the first 10 years of the
nuclear deal.
...
But although some of the constraints extend for 15 years, documents
in the public domain are short on details of what happens with Iran's
most proliferation-prone nuclear activity — its uranium enrichment —
beyond the first 10 years of the agreement.
The document obtained by the AP fills in the gap. It says that as of
January 2027 — 11 years after the deal was implemented — Iran will start
replacing its mainstay centrifuges with thousands of advanced machines.
Centrifuges churn out uranium to levels that can range from use as
reactor fuel and for medical and research purposes to much higher levels
for the core of a nuclear warhead. From year 11 to 13, says the
document, Iran will install centrifuges up to five times as efficient as
the 5,060 machines it is now restricted to using.
Those new models will number less than those being used now, ranging
between 2,500 and 3,500, depending on their efficiency, according to the
document. But because they are more effective, they will allow Iran to
enrich at more than twice the rate it is doing now.
Components other than centrifuge numbers and efficiency also go into
the mix of how quickly a nation can make a nuclear weapon. They include
how much enriched uranium it has to work with, and restrictions on
Iran's stockpile extend until the end of the deal, crimping its full
enrichment program.
But a comparison of outputs between the old and newer machines shows
the newer ones work at double the enrichment rate. That means they would
reduce the time Iran could make enough weapons grade uranium to six
months or less from present estimates of one year.
And that time frame could shrink even more. While the document
doesn't say what happens with centrifuge numbers and types past year 13,
U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz told The AP that Iran will be free
to install any number of advanced centrifuges beyond that point, even
though the nuclear deal extends two additional years.
That will give Iran a huge potential boost in enrichment capacity,
including bomb making should it choose to do so. But it can be put to
use only after the deal expires.
Read the whole thing.
Here in Israel, we'd like to thank President Obama for being an Islamophile and a sleazebag. We hope you live long enough to die - slowly and painfully - as a result of an Iranian nuclear explosion. We'd like to thank all the Senate Democrats who voted in favor of the deal for putting party loyalty above common sense, world safety and peace and tranquility. We'd like to thank all those
former heads of our
intelligence services who made Netanyahu
look like a fool for
opposing the Iranian sellout.
And we'd like to ask Prime Minister Netanyahu where he misplaced his
junk in
2012.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, centrifuges, Eugene Moniz, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, John Kerry, Meir Dagan, uranium enrichment
Rosemary Woods comes to the State Department, doctors press briefing on Iran
How many of you are old enough to remember Rosemary Woods, the Nixon secretary who '
accidentally' erased a critical 18 minutes from the tape of a conversation that took place in the President's office? Woods, who passed away in 2005, has apparently come back to life to work in the State Department.
Let's go to the videotape.
The Washington Examiner provides a
transcript of what the video originally said.
QUESTION: Please, Jen, can we stay on Iran, please?
MS. PSAKI: Sure. Let's stay on Iran and then we can go to China.
QUESTION: On the 6th of February in this room, I had a very brief exchange with your predecessor, Victoria Nuland —
MS. PSAKI: Mm-hmm.
QUESTION: — about Iran. And with your indulgence, I will read it
in its entirety for the purpose of the record and so you can respond to
it.
"Rosen: There have been reports that intermittently, and outside
of the formal P5+1 mechanisms, the Obama Administration, or members of
it, have conducted direct secret bilateral talks with Iran. Is that true
or false?"
"Nuland: We have made clear, as the Vice President did at
Munich, that in the context of the larger P5+1 framework, we would be
prepared to talk to Iran bilaterally. But with regard to the kind of
thing that you're talking about on a government-to-government level,
no."
That's the entirety of the exchange.
As we now know, senior state department officials had, in fact,
been conducting direct, secret bilateral talks with senior officials of
the Iranian Government in Oman, perhaps dating back to 2011 by that
point.
So the question today is a simple one: When the briefer was
asked about those talks and flatly denied them from the podium, that was
untrue, correct?
MS. PSAKI: I mean, James, I – that – you're talking about a
February briefing, so 10 months ago. I don't think we've outlined or
confirmed contacts or specifics beyond a March meeting. I'm not going to
confirm others beyond that at this point. So I don't know that I have
any more for you.
QUESTION: Do you stand by the accuracy of what Ms. Nuland told
me, that there had been no government-to-government contacts, no secret
direct bilateral talks with Iran as of the date of that briefing,
February 6th? Do you stand by the accuracy of that?
MS. PSAKI: James, I have no new information for you today on the
timing of when there were any discussions with any Iranian officials.
QUESTION: Let me try it one last way, Jen —
MS. PSAKI: Okay.
QUESTION: — and I appreciate your indulgence.
MS. PSAKI: Sure.
QUESTION: Is it the policy of the State Department, where the
preservation or the secrecy of secret negotiations is concerned, to lie
in order to achieve that goal?
MS. PSAKI: James, I think there are times where diplomacy needs
privacy in order to progress. This is a good example of that. Obviously,
we have made clear and laid out a number of details in recent weeks
about discussions and about a bilateral channel that fed into the P5+1
negotiations, and we've answered questions on it, we've confirmed
details. We're happy to continue to do that, but clearly, this was an
important component leading up to the agreement that was reached a week
ago.
QUESTION: Since you, standing at that podium last week, did
confirm that there were such talks, at least as far back as March of
this year, I don't see what would prohibit you from addressing directly
this question: Were there secret direct bilateral talks between the
United States and Iranian officials in 2011?
MS. PSAKI: I don't have anything more for you today. We've long
had ways to speak with the Iranians through a range of channels, some of
which you talked – you mentioned, but I don't have any other specifics
for you today.
QUESTION: One more on Iran?
QUESTION: The Los Angeles Times and Politico have reported that
those talks were held as far back as 2011. Were those reports
inaccurate?
MS. PSAKI: I'm not sure which reports you're talking about. Are
you talking about visits that the Secretary and others made to Oman, or
are you talking about other reports?
QUESTION: I'm talking about U.S. officials meeting directly and
secretly with Iranian officials in Oman as far back as 2011. The Los
Angeles Times and Politico have reported those meetings. Were those
reports inaccurate?
MS. PSAKI: I have nothing more for you on it, James, today.
You mean the Obama-Kerry State Department lied? Well, I'll be darned....
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Ben Rhodes, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, Jen Psaki, lies, Richard Nixon, uranium enrichment, US State Department
CONFIRMED -- Iran allowed to collect own samples at nuclear military base -- Verification expert on self-inspection deal: "You need the eyes and the brain to look where to sample... video camera opens up additional methods of deceiving"
The Israel Project's Omri Ceren reports that it has now been confirmed that Iran was in fact allowed to '
inspect' its own nuclear military facility at Parchin. I received this by email.
Reuters this morning conveyed Iranian
media reports establishing that the Iranians recently took their own
environmental samples at their Parchin military facility, where they
conducted tests relevant to the detonation of nuclear warheads, in lieu
of having IAEA inspectors take the samples (Reuters story below;
original IRNA story here [a]).
The IAEA has long sought access to Parchin: the agency needs to
clarify the nature and scope of Iran's past nuclear weapons work - the
possible military dimensions (PMDs) of Iran's atomic program - to
establish what the Iranians did and how far they got, which are the
prerequisites to setting up a verification regime against future
violations. The Obama administration had promised lawmakers that IAEA
inspectors would be able to inspect Parchin and resolve all PMD issues
before any final deal was inked [b][c][d][e][f].
Instead the JCPOA
allowed Iran to sign a secret side deal with the IAEA permitting the
Iranians to self-inspect the facility rather than grant IAEA inspector
robust access.
That side deal was subsequently revealed and published by the AP: the
Iranians would get to collect their own samples, those samples would
have to come from mutually agreed upon areas under overlapping photo and
video surveillance, and the number of the samples would be limited
[g][h]. An Iranian statement this morning confirmed that the Iranians
collected their own samples: "Iranian experts took samples from specific
locations in Parchin facilities this week without IAEA inspectors being
present" [i]. An IAEA statement confirmed the sampling was done from
mutually agreed upon areas under overlapping photo and video
surveillance: "the determination of the spots where the samples are
taken is a separate, important, careful activity…. [that] have to
satisfy our requirements… the actual swiping or other sample taking
[place] under redundant continuous surveillance" [j]. It's not yet clear
whether the AP was also correct about the number of samples being
limited.
The arrangement means that the IAEA will not be able to establish what happened at Parchin.
David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and
International Security, explained at a panel hosted earlier this month
by the Hudson Institute that self-sampling under surveillance is
inadequate. Inspectors need to be on the ground to identify dusty nooks
and corners where violators forgot to dust; the mutually agreed upon
areas are by definition the ones that violators know have been
sanitized [k]:
What you have is, is the situation where there'll be videotaping
of the potential locations where sampling would take place. Then the
IAEA would direct the Iranians to take the samples. And that's not the
normal way to do things.
If I could give the example in Iran of Kalaya Electric, a secret
centrifuge research and development facility that Iran denied was such a
thing. The IAEA got access and it brought in a very top level
centrifuge expert with that access, who looked around. And when they did
the sampling finally they didn't find any trace of enriched uranium in
the areas that had been heavily modified. But in a another, a secondary
building they found in a ventilation duct - which had not been modified -
they found traces of enriched uranium...
You need the eyes and the brain to look where to sample.
I brought an example of sampling in North Korea... they sampled
in the Yongbyon reprocessing plant in the early 90s... you can see in
the sampling they're looking behind this box... Look for where it's
dusty. The idea is that it's not been disturbed. In the case of Parchin,
it would be look for where the paint doesn't look solid. And so, that's
very hard to do with a video camera. So I think the video camera opens
up additional methods of deceiving the IAEA. And it's not the normal way
they've been doing it. And so I think that's a problem...
The sampling would be done, and then the IAEA access would
follow. And so the access is coming at a point where it's not as
useful... You want it to drive the inspection effort and the
environmental sampling effort, not be done at the end of the process [7:29].
The arrangement was also read more broadly as kneecapping the IAEA.
On the experts side, CNN got analysis from Olli Heinonen, former
director of the IAEA's verification shop, as Albright, president of the
Institute for Science and International Security: "It is very unusual...
I find it really hard to understand why you would let someone else take
the samples and only see through the camera" and "It's really not
normal... I don't know why they accepted it. I think the IAEA is
probably getting a little desperate to settle this" [l]. On the
Congressional side, a visit by Amano to the Hill on the side deals left
Senators fuming [m].
The IAEA reacted to this morning's leak by issuing more assurances
about the adequacy of Iranian self-inspections. White House validators
have already picked up the "redundant continuous surveillance" theme and
you're likely to hear more of it [n].
The problem is that the IAEA assurances read a little bit like a
hostage note: lawmakers, experts, and journalists know that the
arrangement is unprecedented and that inspectors need to be on the
ground, so the IAEA statements may be read as evidence that the agency
has bent to political pressure.
What could go wrong?
Labels: IAEA, inspection, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, nuclear weapons, Parchin, Possible Military Dimensions (PMD), uranium enrichment
ICYMI: Obama-Kerry gave away the store before the 'negotiations' ever began
Earlier this week, MEMRI reported that President Hussein Obama secretly
conceded the right to enrich uranium to
'moderate' Hassan Rohani Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2011 as a
precondition to starting 'negotiations' with Iran.
American administration spokesmen have explained the nuclear
agreement with Iran as both leveraging the opportunity created by the
election of a pragmatic Iranian president, Hassan Rohani in June 2013,
and as vital because the sanctions have not set back Iran's nuclear
program, and the West has grown weary of enforcing them.[1]
However, it has emerged that the U.S. began secret negotiations even
earlier, in 2011, during the presidency of the extremist Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad. Moreover, during that time, not only had the Western
countries not lost interest in maintaining the sanctions, but they had
intensified them significantly after the beginning of the secret
negotiations – both in March 2012, when sanctioned Iranian banks
were disconnected from the SWIFT system, and in July 2012, when the
European sanctions on Iranian oil sales were imposed.
Furthermore, according to recent reports in Western media from
Western sources, the Obama administration had, since President Obama
took office in 2008, constantly and consistently pushed for negotiations
with Iran. President Obama's messages in this regard to Iran's
leadership on various levels – letters, public speeches, and so on –
began as early as 2009; details of these media reports and of Obama's
messages will be published in a separate MEMRI report.
Additionally, it is evident from statements by top Iranian officials
that the secret contacts initiated by the Obama administration with Iran
did indeed begin in 2011, during the extremist Ahmadinejad's presidency
– before harsh sanctions were imposed.
...
In a June 23, 2015 speech, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei told about the American initiative, saying that it had begun during
the Ahmadinejad presidency and had centered on U.S. recognition of a
nuclear Iran: "The issue of negotiating with the Americans is connected
to the term of the previous [Ahmadinejad] government, and to the
dispatching of a mediator to Tehran to request talks. At that time, a
dignified individual from the region [referring to Omani Sultan Qaboos]
came to visit me as a mediator, and said explicitly that the American
president [Obama] had asked him to come to Tehran and present the
Americans' 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 this mediator
that I did not trust the Americans or their words, but I agreed, when
he persisted, to reexamine this issue, and the negotiations began."[2]
Some day, historians will wonder how the United States and the western 'powers' were played for such suckers. The answer is actually quite simple: There's a mole in the White House. He's been there since 2009.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, uranium enrichment
The Israel Project's Omri Ceren talks about the Iran deal
Omri Ceren talked by video from New York City and about the Iran nuclear
deal, his opposition to the deal, and the lobbying effects of other
groups who were supporting the deal. He responded to a video clip from
Daniel Kalik speaking August 16, 2015, and an ad from his J Street
organization supporting the deal. Mr. Ceren responded to telephone calls
and electronic communications, with the telephone lines divided between
those who supported and opposed the deal.
Let's go to the videotape.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, intercontinental ballistic missiles, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, nuclear weapons, Omri Ceren, plutonium, uranium enrichment
Amano's deficient damage control
I don't know when on Thursday
this press release from IAEA director Yukia Amano was posted - it only has a date, but no time on it. But as I've reported already, the IAEA's agreement with Iran has been
posted by AP despite Amano. Here's what the IAEA director had to say (Hat Tip:
Memeorandum).
I am disturbed by statements suggesting that the IAEA has given
responsibility for nuclear inspections to Iran. Such statements
misrepresent the way in which we will undertake this important
verification work.
The separate arrangements under the Road-map agreed between the IAEA
and Iran in July are confidential and I have a legal obligation not to
make them public – the same obligation I have for hundreds of such
arrangements made with other IAEA Member States.
However, I can state that the arrangements are technically sound and
consistent with our long-established practices. They do not compromise
our safeguards standards in any way.
The Road-map between Iran and the IAEA is a very robust agreement,
with strict timelines, which will help us to clarify past and present
outstanding issues regarding Iran’s nuclear programme.
If I were sitting in a press conference with Mr. Amano, here's what I would ask:
Mr. Amano, can you name another country aside from Iran in which the IAEA relies solely on photos, videos and soil samples provided by the country under inspection?
Can you name any other country in which an IAEA inspection is merely a 'courtesy visit'?
If Olympic athletes were allowed to provide urine samples without anyone ensuring that they were their own, would you consider that reliable? How could you ensure their authenticity?
How can you ensure the authenticity of a soil sample that you did not watch being taken?
Unbelievable. This whole 'inspection' is a farce. And Amano has been caught with his pants down (I will assume he released that statement before AP released the agreement).
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, IAEA, inspection, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, nuclear weapons, Parchin, United States Congress, uranium enrichment, Yukia Amano
AP gets text of 'secret' Iran-IAEA deal, makes White House look like idiots
Just yesterday, I posted a
Wall Street Journal editorial discussing an
AP report that Iran was going to be allowed to carry out
its own inspections at Parchin, the Tehran facility where Iran was likely
developing nuclear weapons a couple of years ago.
When I went to sleep last night, a Max Fisher piece
attacking that report was trending. Fisher's report was largely based on conversations with Jeffrey Lewis, a guy known on Twitter as @ArmsControlWonk.
"If true" turns out to be a major issue here, as upon closer
examination the inflammatory headline, as it has been widely
interpreted, appears to largely not be true.
In fact, the text of the article said something much more modest. It
said that in a one-time set of inspections at one military facility
known as Parchin, Iranians, rather than nuclear inspectors, would take
"environmental samples" (such as soil samples). It said that nuclear
inspectors would not be permitted to visit, and that Iran would not
provide photos or videos of the site. But still, it was concerning.
"The story was the Iranians would take the samples under some kind of
IAEA monitoring," Jeffrey Lewis, the arms control expert, told me. "The
details of that monitoring were not provided, so it's hard to say how
weird that is. Some IAEA officials say that it's not unusual to let a
country physically take the samples if there's an IAEA inspector
present."
The sourcing in the story, though, seemed to water it down a bit
more. The report was not based not on an actual agreement, but rather on
a copy of a draft agreement. The anonymous source who showed AP the
document said there was a final version that is similar, but
conspicuously refused to show AP the final version or go into specifics.
"The oldest Washington game is being played in Vienna," Lewis said.
"And that is leaking what appears to be a prejudicial and one-sided
account of a confidential document to a friendly reporter, and using
that to advance a particular policy agenda."
The White House was so pleased that at 6:00 pm Eastern last night, they were still
passing the Fisher piece around to reporters. Just one problem:
AP posted the
actual agreement at 4:35 Eastern.
1. Iran will provide to the Agency photos of the locations, including
those identified in paragraph 3 below, which would be mutually agreed
between Iran and the Agency, taking into account military concerns.
2. Iran will provide to the Agency videos of the locations, including
those identified in paragraph 3 below, which would be mutually agreed
between Iran and the Agency, taking into account military concerns.
3. Iran will provide to the Agency 7 environmental samples taken from
points inside one building already identified by the Agency and agreed
by Iran, and 2 points outside of the Parchin complex which would be
agreed between Iran and the Agency.
4. The Agency will ensure the technical authenticity of the
activities referred to in paragraphs 1-3 above. Activities will be
carried out using Iran's authenticated equipment, consistent with
technical specifications provided by the Agency, and the Agency's
containers and seals.
5. The above mentioned measures would be followed, as a courtesy by
Iran, by a public visit of the Director General, as a dignitary guest of
the Government of Iran, accompanied by his deputy for safeguards.
6. Iran and the Agency will organize a one-day technical roundtable on issues relevant to Parchin.
For the International Atomic Energy Agency: Tero Varjoranta, Deputy Director General for Safeguards
For the Islamic Republic of Iran: Ali Hoseini Tash, Deputy Secretary of Supreme National Security Council for Strategic Affairs
What I want to know is, why can the AP get this stuff when
Congress couldn't?
Hmmm.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, IAEA, inspection, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, nuclear weapons, Parchin, United States Congress, uranium enrichment, Yukia Amano
Iran's engraved invitation to develop nuclear weapons
It was bad enough when we heard that the United States cannot send nuclear inspectors to Iran. At all. It was worse when we heard that Iran had the right to approve any nuclear inspectors who did show up. Now, we're beyond that. It turns out that the IAEA cannot inspect Iran's Parchin site - where it is known to have worked on
nuclear weapons - either. With reports already circulating that Iran is
sanitizing Parchin in broad daylight, it now turns out that Parchin will have an excessively lenient inspection regime...
to be carried out by Iran itself. This is from a Wall Street Journal editorial.
But that spin started to unravel three weeks ago with the discovery
that the Parchin inspections were part of a secret side agreement
between the IAEA and Iran—not between Iran and the six negotiating
countries. Secretary of State John Kerry has said he hasn’t read the side deal, though his negotiating deputy Wendy Sherman told MSNBC that she “saw the pieces of paper” but couldn’t keep them. IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano has told Members of the U.S. Congress that he’s bound by secrecy and can’t show them the side deals.
That
secrecy should be unacceptable to Congress—all the more so after the AP
dispatch. The news service says it has seen a document labelled
“separate arrangement II.” The document says Iran will provide the IAEA
with photos and locations that the IAEA says are linked to Iran’s
weapons work, “taking into account military concerns.”
In other
words, the country that lied for years about its nuclear weapons program
will now be trusted to come clean about those lies. And trusted to such
a degree that it can limit its self-inspections so they don’t raise
“military concerns” in Iran.
Keep in mind that the side deal
already excludes a role for the U.S., and that the IAEA lacks any way to
enforce its side deal since it has no way of imposing penalties for
violations. Iran has also already ruled out any role for American or
Canadian nationals on the inspection teams.
Why not cut out the IAEA middle man and simply let Qasem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Quds Force, sign a personal affadavit?
The
AP report hadn’t been contradicted by our deadline on Wednesday, and a
White House spokesman told AP merely that the U.S. is “confident in the
agency’s technical plans for investigating the possible military
dimensions of Iran’s former program.” That sounds like a confirmation.
The
news raises further doubts about a nuclear pact that is already leaking
credibility. Unfettered access to Parchin is crucial to understanding
Iran’s past nuclear work, which is essential to understanding how close
Iran has come to getting the bomb. Without that knowledge it’s
impossible to know if Iran really is a year or more away from having the
bomb, which is the time period that Mr. Kerry says is built into the
accord and makes it so worth doing.
Earlier this year President
Obama signed the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, which says Congress
must receive all documents related to the deal, including any “entered
into or made between Iran and any other parties.” That has to mean the
IAEA.
Republican Presidential Candidate and Senator Ted Cruz went
ballistic over this (Hat Tip:
Memeorandum).
“Enough,” Cruz told TheBlaze in a statement. “Enough of the concessions,
capitulations and backroom deals that make up President Obama’s
catastrophic nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
He continued: “The most recent revelation that Iran will be selecting
its own inspectors to verify the nature of its nuclear program is made
all the more egregious by the fact that as the single largest
contributor to the IAEA (support that is mandated in the JCPOA) United
States taxpayers will be paying for a farce that is a direct threat to
their own security.”
Cruz, who has been an outspoken critic of the Iran nuclear deal since
it was announced, argued the agreement is a matter of national
security, not politics.
“This is not a partisan issue. It is not about President Obama’s
political legacy. It is about the future of our country, and that of our
allies,” he told TheBlaze. “We have to stop this disastrous deal.”
What could go wrong?
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, IAEA, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, John Kerry, Parchin, Possible Military Dimensions (PMD), Ted Cruz, uranium enrichment
Iran: Nuclear weapon site won't be inspected, Amano didn't disclose agreement to Congress
An Iranian spokesman said on Monday that IAEA Director General Yukia Amano was warned not to disclose Iran's agreement with his agency to the US Congress when he testified there. The spokesman also said that the agreement abides by Iran's red lines, which include no inspection of military facilities. That would include Parchin where the
Iranians worked on nuclear weapons.
"In a letter to Yukiya Amano, we underlined that
if the secrets of the agreement (roadmap between Iran and the IAEA) are
revealed, we will lose our trust in the Agency; and despite the US
Congress's pressures, he didn’t give any information to them," Spokesman
of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Behrouz Kamalvandi
said in a meeting with the Iranian lawmakers in Tehran on Monday.
"Had he done so, he himself would have been harmed," he added.
In relevant remarks early this month, Iran's Envoy
to the International Atomic Energy Agency Reza Najafi warned the UN
nuclear watchdog to avoid disclosing its secret agreements with Tehran.
"The agreements signed between a member country
and the IAEA are definitely secret and cannot be presented to any other
country at all," Najafi said.
Referring to the discussions at the US Congress
during which the US officials elaborated on the nuclear agreement
between Iran and the Group 5+1 (the US, Russia, China, Britain and
France plus Germany), he said, "The discussions revealed that the secret
texts between Iran and the Agency have not even been provided to the US
administration."
"For the very same reason, they cannot be presented to the Senate members either," Najafi added.
...
Amano and Head of the AEOI Ali Akbar Salehi signed a roadmap of cooperation in Vienna on July 14.
The roadmap contains secret arrangements stated in
one or two documents entailing on the methods to be used by the two
sides in their cooperation.
Senior Iranian nuclear officials have said that
all IAEA member states have such secret agreements and the UN nuclear
watchdog is duty bound to keep them secret to any third party individual
or state.
After the roadmap was signed, Salehi announced
that the new agreement would fully settle all unresolved issues
pertaining to Tehran's nuclear activities in the past.
"All past issues will be resolved completely after
Iran and the Agency adopt some measures," Salehi told reporters after
signing an agreement called the Iran-IAEA Cooperation 'Roadmap'.
He said that all agreements, including the
measures decided for Parchin military site, will be implemented with
full respect to Iran's redlines.
Iran had earlier announced that inspection of the country's military sites are one of its redlines.
#ThanksObama. What could go wrong?
Labels: Ali Akbar Salehi, Barack Hussein Obama, IAEA, inspection, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, nuclear weapons, Parchin, uranium enrichment, Yukia Amano
Nuclear proliferation feels good
Oh my....
In a report on the North Korea monitoring
website, 38 North, Jeffrey Lewis said recent satellite imagery showed
that in the past year North Korea had begun to refurbish a major uranium
mill in Pyongsan, a county in the southern part of the country.
"The
renovation suggests that North Korea is preparing to expand the
production of uranium from a nearby mine," Lewis, director of the East
Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Monterey Institute of International
Studies, said in the report.
"One possibility is that North Korea will enrich the uranium to expand its stockpile of nuclear weapons," Lewis said.
Another
possibility was that the uranium would be used for production of fuel
for an Experimental Light Water Reactor under construction at its
Yongbon nuclear research facility and future light-water reactors based
on that model, Lewis added.
Lewis said Pyongsan
was believed to be the most important uranium mine in North Korea and
recent satellite imagery indicated that the Uranium Concentration Plant
there was undergoing significant refurbishment.
"Since
2013, most of the buildings have received new roofs," he said. "Other
buildings appear to have been gutted and are now in the process of being
rebuilt with new roofing."
"The
significant investment in refurbishing the mill suggests that North
Korea is expecting to process significant amounts of uranium, either
from the Pyongsan mine or other uranium mines."
North Korea has conducted three nuclear tests, the last in February 2013, and now calls itself a nuclear weapons state.
It
has said it is not interested in a dialogue with the United States like
that which led to a deal over Iran's nuclear program and says its
nuclear capabilities are an "essential deterrence" against hostile U.S.
policy.
What could go wrong?
Labels: Iranian nuclear threat, North Korea, nuclear weapons, uranium enrichment
It starts: US intel warns Congress Iran is sanitizing Parchin in broad daylight
US intelligence officials have informed Congress that it has detected that Iran is '
sanitizing' its Parchin facility outside Tehran where Western countries are virtually certain it has carried out nuclear weapons development activity in the past. The 'sanitizing,' which is being carried out in broad daylight, is apparently a last-ditch effort by Tehran to thwart the ability of IAEA inspectors to reconstruct the extent of the PMD's (possibly military dimensions) of Iran's nuclear program at Parchin. This is from Eli Lake and Josh Rogin.
Intelligence officials and lawmakers who have seen the new evidence,
which is still classified, told us that satellite imagery picked up by
U.S. government assets in mid- and late July showed that Iran had moved
bulldozers and other heavy machinery to the Parchin site and that the
U.S. intelligence community concluded with high confidence that the
Iranian government was working to clean up the site ahead of planned
inspections by the IAEA.
The intelligence community shared its
findings with lawmakers and some Congressional staff late last week,
four people who have seen the evidence told us. The Office of the
Director of National Intelligence briefed lawmakers about the evidence
Monday, three U.S. senators said.
“I am familiar with it,” Senate
Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr told us Tuesday. “I think
it’s up to the administration to draw their conclusions. Hopefully this
is something they will speak on, since it is in many ways verified by
commercial imagery. And their actions seem to be against the grain of
the agreement.”
Burr said Iran’s activities at Parchin complicate
the work of the IAEA inspectors who are set to examine the site in the
coming months. IAEA's director general, Yukiya Amano, was in Washington
on Wednesday to brief lawmakers behind closed doors about the side
agreements.
“They are certainly not going to see the site that
existed. Whether that’s a site that can be determined what it did, only
the technical experts can do that,” Burr said. “I think it’s a huge
concern.”
The Obama administration is already spinning.
A senior intelligence official, when asked about the satellite
imagery, told us the IAEA was also familiar with what he called
"sanitization efforts" since the deal was reached in Vienna, but that
the U.S. government and its allies had confidence that the IAEA had the
technical means to detect past nuclear work anyway.
Another
administration official explained that this was in part because any
trace amounts of enriched uranium could not be fully removed between now
and Oct. 15, the deadline for Iran to grant access and answer remaining
questions from the IAEA about Parchin.
So what? I'm not a nuclear expert, but couldn't removing soil or destroying buildings result in the uranium concentration in the area being lower? Not to mention....
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker told us Tuesday
that while Iran’s activity at Parchin last month isn’t technically a
violation of the agreement it signed with the U.S. and other powers, it
does call into question Iran’s intention to be forthright about the
possible military dimensions of its nuclear program.
Did anyone ever expect them to be forthright about this? It's kind of like....
Several senior lawmakers, including Democrats, are concerned that Iran
will be able to collect its own soil samples at Parchin with only
limited supervision, a practice several lawmakers have compared to
giving suspected drug users the benefit of the doubt to submit specimens
unsupervised. Iran’s sanitization of the site further complicates that
verification.
Yeah. If this goes through, I think the Obama administration should advocate for Tom Brady being able to choose which footballs to let the NFL examine after each game.
David Albright, the president of the Institute for Science and
International Security, obtained a commercially available image of the
Parchin site taken by satellites on July 26 that shows renewed activity
at the Parchin site. He told us there are two new large vehicles,
alterations ongoing to roofs of two of the buildings and new structures
near two of the buildings.
“You have to worry that this could be
an attempt by Iran to defeat the sampling, that it’s Iran’s last-ditch
effort to eradicate evidence there,” he said. “The day is coming when
they are going to have to let the IAEA into Parchin, so they may be
desperate to finish sanitizing the site.”
After all, if you can't trust a country whose motto is 'death to America, death to Israel,' who can you trust?
Meanwhile, for the Obama administration, all is going according to plan.
Secretary of State John Kerry has said that the U.S. government has “absolute knowledge”
about what Iran has done in the past. Ahead of the vote on the
agreement next month, many lawmakers don't share Kerry's confidence.
Iran would seem to have its doubts as well, since it's still trying to
cover its tracks.
What could go wrong?
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, IAEA, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, John Kerry, Parchin, Possible Military Dimensions (PMD), uranium enrichment
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.
There's much more.
Read it all.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, John Kerry, P 5+1, uranium enrichment, Wendy Sherman
How the Senate made it almost impossible to vote down the Iranian nuke agreement
The United States constitution provides that treaties may only be adopted with the advice and consent of
two thirds of the United States Senate.
Three months ago, the Senate adopted a bill that was negotiated with President Obama that abdicated that right of approval. In essence, under Corker-Menendez, Obama has the right to present his surrender to Iranian nuclear weapons to the Senate not as a treaty, but as an agreement. And if the Senate says no, Obama has the right to veto that no. Unless the Senate comes up with
67 votes to override that veto, the agreement with Iran will stand. That means that 34 votes to sustain Obama's veto are enough for the agreement to go through.
There are
44 Democratic Senators in the current Senate, plus an additional two Independents who caucus with the Democrats. In order to override an Obama veto, 13 of those Democrats and Independents must vote against Obama.
Does anyone really think that's going to happen?
Go back and read
this post from three months ago. It's astounding.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Bob Corker, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, P 5+1, United Nations, United States Congress, United States Senate, uranium enrichment
What could go wrong?
As I am sure you are all aware, there is currently a meeting going on in Vienna, at the conclusion of which a deal will be announced that will make Iran a nuclear-armed state within ten years. How bad is this deal? Consider the following coming out of Vienna.
I hope that Hussein Obama and John FN Kerry are proud of their 'achievement.' Neville Chamberlain had nothing on them.
Labels: Ayatollah Ali Khameni, Barack Hussein Obama, centrifuges, Hassan Rohani, human rights, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, John Kerry, Neville Chamberlain, nuclear weapons, P 5+1, uranium enrichment
Unexpected! Iran's nuclear stockpile has GROWN by 20% during 18 months of negotiations
Over and over again, President Hussein Obama has claimed that Iran's nuclear stockpile is 'frozen' during the lengthy P 5+1 negotiations. As it turns out, that's a lie - or at least an 'unexpected' mistake:
Iran's nuclear fuel stockpile has GROWN by 20% during the negotiations.
With
only one month left before a deadline to complete a nuclear deal with
Iran, international inspectors have reported that Tehran’s stockpile of
nuclear fuel increased about 20 percent over the last 18 months of
negotiations, partially undercutting the Obama administration’s
contention that the Iranian program had been “frozen” during that
period.
But
Western officials and experts cannot quite figure out why. One
possibility is that Iran has run into technical problems that have kept
it from converting some of its enriched uranium into fuel rods for
reactors, which would make the material essentially unusable for
weapons. Another is that it is increasing its stockpile to give it an
edge if the negotiations fail.
The extent to which Iran’s stockpile has increased was documented in a report issued Friday
by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations
organization that monitors compliance with nuclear treaties. The
agency’s inspectors, who have had almost daily access to most of Iran’s
nuclear production facilities, reported finding no evidence that Iran
was racing toward a nuclear weapon, and said Tehran had halted work on
facilities that could have given it bomb-making capabilities.
...
There
is little doubt that in the absence of the interim accord, called the
“Joint Plan of Action,” Iran would have made even greater strides. But
the numbers published Friday by the atomic energy agency show that Iran
has continued to enrich uranium aggressively, even though it knew that
it was not meeting its goals of converting its stockpile into reactor
rods.
The
question is: How much of the increased stockpile was done for political
reasons, and how much is because adding to the stockpile has proved
easier than eliminating it?
The
2013 plan for capping the stockpile relied on Iran’s stated plan to
build a “conversion plant” at its sprawling nuclear complex at Isfahan.
The plant was intended to turn newly enriched uranium into oxide powder,
the first step toward making reactor fuel rods. In other words, while
the stockpile would not be reduced, it also should not have grown.
As the Bipartisan Policy Center, a research group in Washington,
said in February,
“Iran has failed” to do the conversion. As a result, it added, Iran’s
stockpile of enriched uranium, compared with when the preliminary accord
went into effect, was growing “significantly larger.”
What could go wrong?
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, P 5+1, uranium enrichment
Iran's nuclear map - much more than you knew about
There's a great map of Iran's nuclear facilities that's been posted
here.
It's by Olli Heinonen, a senior fellow with the Belfer Center at Harvard
University's Kennedy School and a former deputy director-general for
safeguards at the IAEA, and by Simon Henderson is the Baker fellow and director of the Gulf and Energy
Policy Program at The Washington Institute, specializing in energy
matters and the conservative Arab states of the Persian Gulf.
If you click the link, you can even download a pdf version (which I did). I had no idea that there were this many facilities and I suspect that most of you didn't know either (I thought there were four or five facilities). Most of these facilities will remain intact if President Obama's agreement with Iran goes through and is implemented.
What could go wrong?
Labels: Arak heavy water production plant, Barack Hussein Obama, Bushehr, Fordow nuclear plant, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, Natanz, P 5+1, plutonium, uranium, uranium enrichment
Iran's 'slightly different' nuclear framework
Iran has released its own 'fact sheet' on what was agreed upon at Lausanne last month. Unsurprisingly, it's
slightly different than the US version.
“The [Iranian] fact sheet urges operation of 10,000 centrifuge machines
at Natanz and Fordow, a maximum five-year-long duration for the deal
and for Iran’s nuclear limitations, [and] replacement of the current
centrifuges with the latest generation of home-made centrifuge machines
at the end of the five-year period,” the Fars News Agency reported on
Wednesday.
“The Iranian parliament fact sheet for a revision to
the Lausanne agreement came after the US released a fact sheet
different from the joint statement issued by Iran’s Foreign Minister
Mohammad Javad Zarif and Federica Mogherini, the high representative of
the European Union for foreign affairs,” the Iranian version said.
According
to the American document, Tehran agreed to reduce the number of
installed uranium enrichment centrifuges it has to 6,104 from 19,000,
and for 10 years will only operate 5,060 under the future final
agreement with the six powers.
The Iranian fact sheet also said
that once the final agreement is signed, there must be an immediate end
to all US and EU sanctions and to UN Security Council resolutions.
However,
the US fact sheet says that Iran would only gradually receive relief
from US and European Union sanctions as it demonstrates compliance with
the future agreement.
The US version also states that UN
Security Council resolutions on Iran’s nuclear file would only be lifted
after Iran has fully addressed all nuclear concerns.
Moreover,
in place of the US claim that Iran agreed to limit its uranium
enrichment to 3.67 percent for 15 years, the Iranian fact sheet says
that after only five years, enrichment would continue at below 5%.
What could be worse than a bad agreement? A bad agreement that's an ongoing work in which no one can agree on what was agreed.
What could go wrong?
Labels: Ayatollah Ali Khameni, Barack Hussein Obama, Hassan Rohani, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, P 5+1, uranium enrichment
Corker-Menendez passes Senate Foreign Relations Committee 19-0, but it's not all it's cracked up to be
By a 19-0 vote, the Corker-Menendez bill giving Congress a vote on a nuclear deal with Iran
passed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday afternoon, and now there are even indications that
President Hussein Obama will sign the bill (Hat Tip:
Memeorandum). However, conservatives argue that Obama will
still have free reign over what happens with a deal with Iran, and some are even
calling Corker a traitor. This is from the first link.
The panel voted 19-0 to approve
legislation worked out between Committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn.,
and Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, who took over as ranking Democrat after
Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey was indicted on federal corruption
charges. Menendez was co-author of the legislation with Corker.
The deal shortened the congressional review period for any agreement
from 60 days to 30 days and eliminated a requirement that the president
periodically certify that Iran is keeping to the terms of any agreement
and "has not directly supported or carried out an act of terrorism
against the United States, or a United States person anywhere in the
world."
That provision was replaced by one
requiring periodic reporting on Iran's support of terrorism. Another
provision aimed at soothing Republican concerns would require the
president to certify that any deal would not harm Israel's security,
replacing a bid by some GOP members to require Iran to accept the Jewish
state's right to exist as part of any agreement.
The compromise makes clear that Obama can waive U.S. sanctions if Congress approves a nuclear deal or if it fails to act.
The Wall Street Journal points out that the nuclear deal is still
Obama's one-man deal - he will continue to have free reign over it.
As late as Tuesday morning, Secretary of State John Kerry
was still railing in private against the bill. But the White House
finally conceded when passage with a veto-proof majority seemed
inevitable. The bill will now pass easily on the floor, and if Mr.
Obama’s follows his form, he will soon talk about the bill as if it was
his idea.
Mr. Obama can still do whatever he wants on Iran as
long as he maintains Democratic support. A majority could offer a
resolution of disapproval, but that could be filibustered by Democrats
and vetoed by the President. As few as 41 Senate Democrats could thus
vote to prevent it from ever getting to President Obama’s desk—and 34
could sustain a veto. Mr. Obama could then declare that Congress had its
say and “approved” the Iran deal even if a majority in the House and
Senate voted to oppose it.
My friend Noah Pollak is disappointed.
And the
Tea Partiers are furious.
Traitor is strong language, but in the aftermath of Tuesday’s vote on
a bill that was supposed to reaffirm the Senate’s constitutional power
to consent to President Obama’s as yet still undefined and undisclosed
nuclear treaty with Iran there is no other way to describe the actions
of Senator Bob Corker, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign
Relations
The bill Corker rammed through the Foreign Relations Committee is worse than no bill at all.
What Corker’s bill does is, in its post-markup form, require the
president to submit for congressional review the final nuclear agreement
reached between Iran, the U.S. and its five negotiating partners. The
bill does maintain the prohibition on the president waiving
congressionally enacted sanctions against Iran during the review period.
However, the review period in the measure has been shortened from 60
days to an initial 30 days. If, at the end of the 30 days, Congress were
to pass a bill on sanctions relief and send it to the president, an
additional 12 days would be automatically added to the review period.
This could be another 10 days of review if the president vetoed the
resulting sanctions bill.
Corker’s legislation in effect lowers the threshold for approving the
Iran deal from 67 votes to 41 – a craven betrayed of the Senate’s
constitutional role as the final word on whether or not the United
States agrees to a treaty.
...
More importantly, Corker betrayed American interests and the
interests of our allies in the greater Middle East; from Israel, to
Saudi Arabia, to India no nation now within the range of Iran’s fast
growing missile technology is secure from the threat of a nuclear armed
Islamist Iran.
And make no mistake – it is the combination of Iran’s expansionist Islamism and nuclear weapons technology that is the threat.
...
The “growing support” for Senator Corker’s information, was not for
him to cave-in to Obama, but for the Senate to exercise its real
constitutional role in the approval – or disapproval – of Obama’s treaty
to legitimize Iran’s nuclear weapons program. And that means “advice”
while the treaty is negotiated and “consent” after the President
concludes the agreement.
Bob Corker has betrayed that constitutional principle and the world
will be a much more dangerous place for his inexplicable failure to
grasp the existential threat a nuclear armed Islamic Republic of Iran
poses to the United States and in that willful blindness he has in
effect betrayed all peoples who share the values of freedom of
conscience, freedom of religion and freedom of speech and will be
threatened by a nuclear armed Islamic Republic of Iran.
The Wall Street Journal argues that Corker had no choice.
Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker
deserves credit for trying, but in the end he had to agree to
Democratic changes watering down the measure if he wanted 67 votes to
override an Obama veto. Twice the Tennessee Republican delayed a vote in
deference to Democrats, though his bill merely requires a vote after the negotiations are over.
It also has a more nuanced take on what ought to happen.
Our own view of all this is closer to that of Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson,
who spoke for (but didn’t offer) an amendment in committee Tuesday to
require that Mr. Obama submit the Iran nuclear deal as a treaty. Under
the Constitution, ratification would require an affirmative vote by two-thirds of the Senate.
Committing
the U.S. to a deal of this magnitude—concerning proliferation of the
world’s most destructive weapons—should require treaty ratification.
Previous Presidents from JFK to Nixon to Reagan and George H.W. Bush submitted nuclear pacts as treaties. Even Mr. Obama submitted the U.S.-Russian New Start accord as a treaty.
The
Founders required two-thirds approval on treaties because they wanted
major national commitments overseas to have a national political
consensus. Mr. Obama should want the same kind of consensus on Iran.
But
instead he is giving more authority over American commitments to the
United Nations than to the U.S. Congress. By making the accord an
executive agreement as opposed to a treaty, and perhaps relying on a
filibuster or veto to overcome Congressional opposition, he’s turning
the deal into a one-man presidential compact with Iran. This will make
it vulnerable to being rejected by the next President, as some of the
GOP candidates are already promising.
The case for the Corker
bill is that at least it guarantees some debate and a vote in Congress
on an Iran deal. Mr. Obama can probably do what he wants anyway, but the
Iranians are on notice that the United States isn’t run by a single
Supreme Leader.
Well yes, unless the next President is - God Forbid - Hillary Clinton or Elizabeth Warren.
The Tea Party also has criticism of other Senators.
Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA), at the request of Corker, agreed to
withdraw an amendment to provide compensation for American victims of
the 1979 Iran hostage crisis from fees collected for violations of Iran
sanctions.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who planned to introduce an amendment that
would have required the president to certify to Congress that Iran
recognizes the state of Israel, wilted and settled for language
asserting that the nuclear agreement would not compromise U.S. support
for Israel’s right to exist.
Affirmation of Israel's right to exist is of course is a foundational
principle of American foreign policy that was never questioned until
Obama became president and Republican leaders on Capitol Hill became not
so much the leaders of an opposition party, as a collection of craven
cowards who wish only to avoid the unpleasantness actually having
principles and standing for them would entail.
No, it wasn't questioned. And it's high time the questioning should stop. How many days until Obama's term ends?
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Bob Corker, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, Marco Rubio, P 5+1, United Nations, United States Congress, United States Senate, uranium enrichment
