Posted on 03/04/2015 5:58:39 AM PST by upchuck
The Obama administration is pursuing a nuclear deal with Iran that leaves the Islamic Republic a year away from obtaining a nuclear bomb and which, according to experts, gives the United States insufficient leverage to dismantle Tehran’s nuclear infrastructure.
As negotiations with Iran hit a critical juncture, U.S. officials and policy experts from across the spectrum are warning that the Obama administration is poised to agree to a deal that all but guarantees Tehran the ability to build a nuclear bomb.
The position outlined by President Obama and key administration officials in recent interviews represent a significant shift in U.S. negotiating policy over the past few years. The administration, critics argue, has walked back its own red lines in talks, conceding to Iran the ability to retain its core nuclear infrastructure and the technological know-how to build a weapon.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel expressed concerns over the administration’s stance on Tuesday during remarks before a joint session of Congress.
“If the deal now being negotiated is accepted by Iran, that deal will not prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu said. “It would all but guarantee that Iran gets those weapons, lots of them.
“We know for sure that any deal with Iran will include two major concessions to Iran,” Netanyahu added. “The first major concession would leave Iran with a vast nuclear infrastructure, providing it with a short break-out time to the bomb.”
“According to the deal, not a single nuclear facility would be demolished,” he said. “Thousands of centrifuges used to enrich uranium would be left spinning. Thousands more would be temporarily disconnected, but not destroyed.”
Permitting Iran to retain the core of its program—and return to it after a reported 10-year period—would keep Tehran a year away from obtaining a nuclear bomb, Netanyahu said.
“Because Iran’s nuclear program would be left largely intact, Iran’s break-out time would be very short—about a year by U.S. assessment, even shorter by Israel’s,” he said. “And if—if Iran’s work on advanced centrifuges, faster and faster centrifuges, is not stopped, that break-out time could still be shorter, a lot shorter.”
President Obama confirmed this timeframe Tuesday in a response to Netanyahu’s speech, saying that the proposed deal would “ensure that [Iran] did not have what we call a break-out capacity that was shorter than a year’s time.”
Many U.S. lawmakers agree with Netanyahu’s assessment and are beginning to signal that they will block the proposed deal.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu is right to argue that the clear alternative to a bad deal is a better deal with Iran, one that only lifts crippling pressure on the Iranian regime when it stops its nuclear weapons program, stops aggression against its neighbors, stops supporting terrorism, and stops threatening to annihilate Israel,” Sen. Mark Kirk (R., Ill.), a critic of the White House’s strategy, said in a statement.
“Netanyahu made a powerful case to the American people on why a bad nuclear deal with Iran, one that allows the world’s biggest state sponsor of terrorism to keep vast capabilities to make the world’s worst weapons, is worse than no deal,” Kirk said. “A nuclear-armed Iran poses the greatest long-term threat to the United States, Israel, and our allies in the Gulf.
Sen. Jim Inhofe (R., Okla.), a leading member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, also expressed alarm about the administration’s clear shift in negotiating posture.
“I stand with Netanyahu’s demands today that Iran’s government must change its behaviors,” Inhofe said in a statement following the prime minister’s remarks. “This must be a non-negotiable item in any agreement the United States seeks to reach with Iran, and anything short of it will be a bad deal, not only for Israel but for the West.”
“I hope the president was listening today and will reverse course on the unfortunate leverage he has given the government of Iran over the past year to continue pursuing its nuclear weapon’s capabilities,” Inhofe said.
The key concession causing alarm among administration critics hinges upon the president’s approval of a so-called sunset clause in the deal that effectively allows Iran to restart its nuclear program after a decade of relief from economic sanctions (a demand that Tehran has already rejected).
This differs from the White House’s negotiating posture in previous years, which focused on dismantling Iran’s nuclear program.
“While we go through these next six months, we will be negotiating the dismantling, we will be negotiating the limitations,” Secretary of State John Kerry said in November 2013. “You can’t always start where you want to wind up.”
Other top administration officials also made this claim.
“Our position is clear: Iran must live up to its international obligations, including full suspension of uranium enrichment as required by multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions,” White House National Security Council (NSC) Spokesman Tommy Vietor said in April 2012.
Bernadette Meehan, spokeswoman for the NSC, also pushed the notion of Iranian concessions in December 2013 remarks.
“We are prepared to negotiate a strictly limited enrichment program in the end state, but only because the Iranians have indicated for the first time in a public document that they are prepared to accept rigorous monitoring and limits on level, scope, capacity, and stockpiles,” she said at the time.
Mark Dubowitz, a nuclear expert and executive director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), said Iran has gained the upper hand in talks with the United States
“The Obama position has gone from dismantle and disclose to disconnect and defer,” Dubowitz said. “They have squandered their negotiating leverage to an Iranian regime that entered negotiations with a weak hand and looks likely to get what it also wanted—nuclear weapons, a growing economy, and regional dominance.”
Sanctions relief provided to Iran under an ongoing interim agreement also has emboldened Iran, Dubowitz said.
“The Obama administration significantly underestimated the value of the direct and indirect economic relief triggered by the JPOA and the de-escalation of sanctions pressure,” he explained. “Iran’s economy, which was once on its back is now on its knees and getting up to its feet. The Obama administration responded to Iranian declarations that key nuclear elements were nonnegotiable by agreeing to these demands.”
David Brog, executive director of Christians United for Israel, said that the president is surrendering to Iran in negotiations.
“President Obama has repeatedly promised that he will never permit Iran to get a nuclear weapon,” said Brog. “Was this a word game? Does the content of this pledge depend upon what the meaning of the word “never” is? By all accounts the agreement taking shape in Geneva will allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons. In the most optimistic scenario, it merely delays this dark day. This is surrender on the installment plan.”
One senior congressional aide called the president’s concessions mind-boggling.
“It boggles the mind just how much the Obama administration has already conceded to Iran, to include a significant ability to enrich uranium and make ballistic missiles, as well as sanctions relief that’s resuscitated Iran’s tanking economy, all before Iran has done anything to the world that it no longer has any secret nuclear activities,” the aide said.
The Obama administration’s repeated concessions to Iran are also being noticed with alarm among pro-Israel policy makers.
“We set out to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability. And now we’re settling on allowing them to acquire that capability in a decade,” said one pro-Israel policy expert involved the debate. “If the president convinces Congress to capitulate on a bad deal, a decade from now, we will look at this moment the same way we now look at Chamberlin’s ‘peace in our time.’”
Another D.C.-based official with a pro-Israel organization said that in the past year, the White House has walked back its key demand that Iran completely shut down its nuclear program.
“A year ago the Obama administration demanded the benefit of the doubt, and promised that it would bring home a deal that would permanently shutter Iran’s nuclear program,” said the source, who declined to be named out of fear of offending the White House. “Now the president himself has declared that Iran will be allowed a full-scale nuclear program in 10 years. He’s putting the mullahs on the glide path to a bomb. What happened?”
What happened? There's a Muslim in charge of the deal.
This is, without a doubt, the most dangerous thing nobama has done.
Why must it be kept secret? Must be pretty bad.
Um, that's the point. Why else do you think Obama is going through all this subterfuge? I mean, he can't just openly allow Iran to have the bomb and nuke Israel. Think of how that would put a dent in his fundraising in the Jewish community.
That’s the plan. Soetoro and his ‘RAT Nazis all want the Muzzies to have the ability to nuke Israel and get rid of the Jews for once and for all. DemocRATs have been wanting this for a long, long time.
I heard Bibi say it this way yesterday,”We would like the USA to assist in stopping the nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, especially by Iran. However, if you choose not to help and we see them going ahead we will stop them on our own.” And subtly, “We have the nukes to do it and will use them!” Jarrett was not amused so therefore neither was Obama.
And WTH doesn’t Congress do a damn thing about what is so evident o the rest of America? I hate to say it but its becoming more clear everyday. Its going to require a little spilling of the blood of tyrants to fix this problem. Activism, discussion and lawsuits isn’t going to fix a damn thing. You can’t negotiate with terrorists especially if they have the key to your front door.
Really? This Congress? Obama doesn't intend to submit the agreement to Congress and they have already demonstrated how feckless they are. Obama will do whatever he wants and all he will get in response is some speeches and maybe hearings that will accomplish nothing.
There is more to it than that.
Some how, some one has effectively disrupted the nuclear work in Iran
When elected Obama guessed the bomb would be complete in 1 1/2 to 2 years. It apparently is still not complete 6 years later. There was STUXNET, there were the deaths of at least two lead scientists, there were at least two major explosions at underground facilities thought to be parts of the development process.
There is lots of talk about IAF planes over flying Saudi Arabia or even having landing rights for refueling. Bombing has not been the favored solution. On the grand hands on destruction has apparently been very effective.
I have believed that Obama is a Manchurian president. I no longer believe that to be so. His lack of work ethic, consistently naive pronouncements, churlish behavior, ideological preferences, me-first mentality, self absorption, self aggrandizement, and on and on, have led me to the inescapable conclusion that he is merely a spoiled child, grown up to become a particularly manipulative, nasty and dangerous tyrant.
Obama is precisely the manifestation of liberal influence for the past 60 years. Ridding ourselves of adolescent onanism can only come after the putative brat is crushed and begging for release from the consequences of his arrogance.
Make it so.
Co-pRes_ _ents Val and Obola both openly
and proudly and as Shiite Moslems work for the Mullahs,
to serve them US tax money, to give them secret tech,
to coverup their serial brazen murders of Americans,
and to give them nuclear and chemical WMD.
And the EXEMPT in the odious Congress have done nothing
because they always support criminality and
treason.
Yup, he’s a muslim, upchuck.
I remember when he was on the campaign trail. His brethren, the muslim money changers in MONROVIA, LIBERIA had pictures of their new Muslim (hopeful) Ruler for America in their “kiosks”. Obama was in his full muslim regalia. They were vociferous about their muslim brother taking a shot at the presidency.
These people knew he was a muslim BEFORE our media even contemplated vetting him. Yup, Before he made it into the office.
Just shows how efficient the jungle drums are:)
Think broadly. All that has been done over thirty years....has been simply delay tactics....that’s all. Obama has reshuffled the cards...full speed ahead and let the chips fall where they may.
If the treaty occurs, which I think it will...Saudi Arabia will hire up someone to build a nuke power plant, then hire North Koreans to deliver nuke weapons technology. It may take six years...but the Saudis will have such technology shortly. The Syrians? The Iraqis? The Turks? Same story.
All this does is move the timetable up....instead of thirty years away from some nuke missile episode....it’s ten to fifteen. It doesn’t necessary mean the Israeli gov’t is the target. That’s all that comes out of this....guaranteed nuke weapons usage in about a decade. Mad mullah scenario? Yeah....but it’s the gameplan being developed.
Very excellent point. Don't you just hate it when that kinda stuff happens? That sure is too bad that that kinda stuff would happen to those guys. What a shame...
Future generations will ask: “How did they ever let it happen?”
Make no mistake, a nuclear-armed Iran will be the most significant and
fundamental security threat of our lifetime, with profound,
far-reaching economic implications.
Yes, Iran poses an existential threat to Israel, but many are
mistakenly assuming that a nuclear Iran is not a threat to the US.
Remember, we’re the Great Satan, Israel is the Little Satan. Iran has
a national holiday called “Death to America Day.” That isn’t just an
excuse for the Mullahs to take a day off from work and have backyard
BBQs.
And just blaming Obama and Kerry will ring hollow to our children and
grandchildren.
I'm not so sure that would negatively affect the fundraising in that community.
Yeah, sure. Republicans and Congress will take care of this just like they took care of Obamacare and immigration. Remember how in October of 2014 Republicans couldn't get to a microphone fast enough to pledge that they would defund Obamacare?
Yeah, that's how much I trust the Crying Cheeto and his friend, The Turtle.
They won’t blame him. Nothing is ever a Democrat’s fault.
You have arrived at the precise conclusion. I think your conclusion can now be regarded as an axiomatic fact as there really is no other valid conclusion.
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