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Iran to soon exceed enriched uranium limit under nuclear pact: Fars news agency
FILE PHOTO: Iran's national flags are seen on a square in Tehran February 10, 2012, a day before the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. REUTERS/Morteza Nikoubazl/File PhotoDUBAI (Reuters) - Iran will soon exceed an enriched uranium limit under its nuclear deal, after remaining signatories to the pact fell short of Tehran’s demands to be shielded from U.S. sanctions, the semi-official Fars news agency cited an “informed source” as saying. Iran’s envoy to a meeting of the remaining signatories to the 2015 nuclear accord said on Friday that European countries had offered too little at last-ditch talks to persuade Tehran to back off from its plans to breach limits imposed by the deal. “As the commission meeting in Vienna could not satisfy Iran’s just demands ... Iran is determined to cut it commitments to the deal and the 300 kg enriched uranium limit will be soon breached,” the unnamed source said, according to Fars. Reporting by Dubai newsroom; Editing by Kevin Liffey  Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (R) (AP/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Report: Former Iranian president Ahmadinejad arrested for anti-regime remarks January 7, 2018
Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has reportedly been arrested after criticizing the government and supporting the anti-regime unrest in the country. By: World Israel News Staff Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has reportedly been arrested after criticizing the government in remarks that were deemed as “inciting unrest.” The Al Quds Al Arabi daily reported Saturday that it learned from “reliable sources in Tehran” that the authorities ordered Ahmadinejad’s arrest during his visit to the city of Shiraz, and that the arrest was made with the approval of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The arrest was ordered after Ahmadinejad’s recent remarks in Bushehr, where he told a crowd just as the widespread unrest in Iran began that the nation’s leadership is detached “from the problems of the people and their concerns, and [does] not know anything about the reality of society.” “What Iran is suffering from today is mismanagement and not lack of economic resources,” he charged. “The government of Hassan Rouhani believes that they own the land and that the people are an ignorant society,” Ahmadinejad said. “The people are angry at this government because of its monopoly on public wealth.” Authorities have reportedly placed him under house arrest. The Iranian people have taken to the streets in the past week to protest Iran’s dictatorial regime and the repressive financial state in which the Iranian citizens live. The protests began because of the weak economy, unemployment and a jump in food prices. They have expanded to cities and towns in nearly every province. Hundreds have been arrested, and a prominent judge warned that some could face the death penalty. At least 21 people are believed to have been killed in the anti-regime protests. This is the country’s largest wave of anti-government protests since the “Green Revolution” erupted in 2009 following a controversial presidential election. The protesters are demanding that the regime invest in the country and its economy, and not in its foreign terrorism network and belligerent regional expansionism. Ahmadinejad’s remarks reportedly came in response to an attack by Rouhani, who described Ahmadinejad as “walking in the path of confrontation with the regime.” Ahmadinejad was president from 2005 to 2013, and was best known abroad for his incendiary rhetoric toward Israel, his questioning of the scale of the Holocaust and his efforts to ramp up Iran’s nuclear program. _____________________________ 
Iran Nuclear Deal — Alive or Dead?
BY: PATRICK BUCHANAN JANUARY 10, 2017 Though every Republican in Congress voted against the Iran nuclear deal, “Tearing it up … is not going to happen,” says Sen. Bob Corker, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. Hopefully, the chairman speaks for the president-elect. During the campaign, Donald Trump indicated as much, saying that, though the U.S. got jobbed in the negotiations — “We have a horrible contract, but we do have a contract” — he might not walk away. To Trump, a deal’s a deal, even a bad one. And we did get taken. In 2007 and 2011, all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies assured us, “with high confidence,” that Iran did not have an atomic bomb program. Yet our folks forked over $50 billion for an Iranian show and tell to prove they were not doing what our 17 intelligence agencies told us, again and again, they were not doing. Why did we disbelieve our own intelligence, and buy into the “Chicken Little” chatter about Iran being “only months away from a bomb”? Corker also administered a cold shower to those who darkly warn of a secret Iranian program to produce a bomb: “In spite of all the flaws in the agreement, nothing bad is going to happen relative to nuclear development in Iran in the next few years. It’s just not.” Under the deal, Iran has put two-thirds of the 19,000 centrifuges at Natanz in storage, ceased enriching uranium to 20 percent at Fordow, poured concrete into the core of its heavy water reactor at Arak, and shipped 97 percent of its enriched uranium out of the country. Cameras and United Nations inspectors are all over the place. Even should Iran decide on a crash program to create enough fissile material for a single A-bomb test, this would take a year, and we would know about it. But why would they? After all, there are sound reasons of state why Iran decided over a decade ago to forego nuclear weapons. Discovery of a bomb program could bring the same U.S. shock and awe as was visited on Iraq for its nonexistent WMD. Discovery would risk a pre-emptive strike by an Israel with scores of nuclear weapons. Saudi Arabia and Turkey would have a powerful inducement to build their own bombs. Acquiring a nuclear weapon would almost surely make Iran, a Persian nation on the edge of a sea of Arabs, less secure. If, however, in the absence of a violation of the treaty by Iran, we tore up the deal, we could find ourselves isolated. For Britain, France and Germany also signed, and they believe the agreement is a good one. Do we really want to force these NATO allies to choose between the deal they agreed to and a break with the United States? If the War Party is confident Iran is going to cheat, why not wait until they do. Then make our case with evidence, so our allies can go with us on principle, and not from pressure. Also at issue is the deal signed by Boeing to sell Iran 80 jetliners. Airbus has contracted to sell Iran 100 planes, and begun delivery. List price for the two deals: $34.5 billion. Tens of thousands of U.S. jobs are at stake. Is a Republican Congress prepared to blow up the Boeing deal and force the Europeans to cancel the Airbus deal? Why? Some contend the planes can be used to transport the Iranian Republican Guard. But are the Iranians, who are looking to tourism, trade and investment to rescue their economy, so stupid as to spend $35 billion for troop transports they could buy from Vladimir Putin? The Ayatollah’s regime may define itself by its hatred of the Great Satan. Still, in 2009, even our War Party was urging President Obama to publicly back the Green Movement uprising against the disputed victory of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In 2013, moderates voted Hassan Rouhani into the presidency, where he began secret negotiations with the USA. New elections will be held this year. And while the death of ex-President Rafsanjani this weekend has removed the powerful patron of Rouhani and strengthened the hard-liners, Ayatollah Khamenei is suffering from cancer, and the nation’s future remains undetermined. Iran’s young seek to engage with the West. But if they are spurned, by the cancellation of the Boeing deal and the reimposition of U.S. sanctions, they will be disillusioned and discredited, and the mullahs will own the future. How would that serve U.S. interests? We still have sanctions on Iran for its missile tests in violation of Security Council resolutions, for its human rights violations, and for its support of groups like Hezbollah. But we also have in common with Iran an enmity for the Sunni terrorists of al-Qaida and ISIS. We are today fighting in Libya, Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, as the War Party works to confront Beijing in the South China Sea, Russia in Ukraine and North Korea over its nuclear and missile tests. Could we perhaps put the confrontation with Iran on hold? ____________________________ Wallace Bruschweiler Interview on Nuclear Iran Part 1 & Part 2
Why GOP Congressional Leaders Support the Iran Deal in Fact — Follow the Money
A Boeing 747 flown by Iran Air at Mehrabad Airport in Tehran. (Behrouz Mehri/AFP/Getty) by ANDREW C. MCCARTHY September 18, 2015 1:05 PM ‘Why on earth would Republicans do that?” That is a question I’ve been asked at least a dozen times since illustrating that the GOP has played a cynical game in connection with President Obama’s Iran deal. “Follow the money” is a common answer to questions about political motivation. It may not explain everything in this case, but it is certainly relevant. This spring, Republican leadership colluded with the White House and congressional Democrats to enact a law — the Corker-Cardin Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act — that guaranteed Obama would be authorized to lift sanctions against Iran (the main objective of the terrorist regime in Tehran). The rigged law authorized Obama to lift sanctions as long as Republicans could not pass a resolution of disapproval. As Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker John Boehner, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, and other GOP leaders well knew, there was no way they would ever be able to enact a disapproval resolution over Obama’s veto. But the process choreographed by Corker-Cardin meant they would be able to complain about the deal and vote to disapprove it — thereby creating the impression that they were staunchly against the lifting of sanctions that they had already authorized. Why on earth would Republicans do that? Well, their incentive to obscure the earlier approval vote with the theater of a futile disapproval process is clear: The Iran deal is intensely unpopular among the GOP’s base supporters, just as it is unpopular across the country. Incumbents who hope to be reelected want to be perceived as staunch opponents of the things their constituents abhor. But why isn’t this perception the reality — why wouldn’t GOP congressional leaders actually be staunch opponents? Why wouldn’t they zealously use their every power to stop the deal? RELATED: How the GOP Pretends Not to Authorize Obama’s Agenda Perhaps because not all Republican backers object to Obama’s Iran deal. The deal’s enthusiasts may be a tiny minority of GOP supporters, but they represent big bucks. Often in Washington, the numbers that matter are measured in dollars, not votes. Take Boeing, for example. Based in Chicago, Boeing is the world’s largest aerospace company, with revenues expected to surge past $96 billion this year. It is a major GOP donor. It gives mountains of money to Democrats, too, but the lion’s share of its political contributions go to Republicans. For the 2014 campaign cycle, according to OpenSecrets.org, the company gave about 60 percent of its whopping $3,250,000 in donations to the GOP. Major recipients included such establishment pillars as the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee ($38,000 each), and the National Republican Senatorial Committee ($33,000). Significant contributions were also made to McConnell ($13,000), Boehner ($25,000), Senator Lindsey Graham ($39,000), and many others. And that’s apart from the nearly $17 million the company spent in 2014 on lobbyists, 80 percent of whom have transitioned to the other end of the trough after careers in government. It just so happens that Boeing stands to reap huge money from Obama’s lifting of the sanctions. RELATED: How Obama Swingled Americans on Iran Iran’s airline industry has been crippled by these severe restrictions, which are aimed against commerce connected to the regime’s illegal uranium enrichment, terror promotion, and weapons trafficking. Once the sanctions are lifted, the mullahs are expected to order up at least 100 new aircraft in just the next year, and 400 over the next decade. That means tens of billions of dollars in sales for manufacturers positioned to satisfy those pressing needs. No company is better positioned than Boeing. It not only has the models Iran wants and the production capacity to fill huge orders. Boeing also ingratiated itself with the mullahs last year by leaping into action when President Obama, eager to keep Iran at the negotiating table, granted some limited sanctions relief. Reuters reported that the company “sold aircraft manuals, drawings, charts and data to Iran Air.” RELATED: PolitiFact’s ‘Fact Check’ Misses the Truth About Iran Deal Interesting thing about that: Iran Air, the national carrier, is most notorious for providing material support to the barbaric Assad regime in Syria and the Hezbollah terrorist network that props it up. Iran Air is most notorious for providing material support to the barbaric Assad regime in Syria and the Hezbollah terrorist network that props it up. As detailed earlier this week in an important report by Emanuele Ottolenghi and Ben Weinthal of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (published by Politico’s European edition), the U.S. Treasury Department designated Iran Air as a proliferator of weapons of mass destruction in 2011, ordering the freezing of its assets. Serving as an arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (the force principally responsible for killing hundreds of American troops in Iraq and 19 American airmen in the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia), Iran Air transported rockets and missiles, as well as military personnel and weapons, to Syria. It also violated a U.N. arms embargo by sending along dual-use materials that can be converted to military applications. Oh . . . and given that Obama’s Iran deal depends on the terrorist regime’s good-faith cooperation with inspectors and compliance with restrictions on its nuclear work, it is probably worth mentioning how Iran Air managed to carry out its WMD proliferation: as Messrs. Ottolenghi and Weinthal explain, it systematically lied about the content of the cargo on its flights. Nevertheless, in the implementation of the Iran deal approved by Corker-Cardin, Obama will be dropping the designation against Iran Air. MORE IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL IRANIAN PRESIDENT: ‘DEATH TO AMERICA’ CHANT ‘IS NOT A SLOGAN AGAINST THE AMERICAN PEOPLE’ STOP OBAMA’S $150 BILLION BAILOUT OF AL-QAEDA’S ALLIES COTTON: IRAN DEAL SUPPORTERS ‘SOFT AND GULLIBLE’ To sum up: Obama cuts a deal with Iran. The implementation of the deal is abetted by legislation pushed by the Republican-controlled Congress despite massive opposition from the GOP base. Under the deal, a major GOP donor stands to make billions selling aircraft to Iran. Iran will use the aircraft to fortify the Assad regime (which Obama and GOP leadership claim to want to topple) and to promote terrorism by networks with a history of murdering Americans. See? Everybody wins, right? Well, everybody except those of us whose idea of a win involves cashiering, not cashing in on, a mortal enemy of the United States. That happens to be a vast number of people . . . in case you were wondering why the Republican candidates now topping the polls are the outsiders running against the Beltway GOP establishment. — Andrew C. McCarthy is a policy fellow at the National Review Institute. His latest book is Faithless Execution: Building the Political Case for Obama’s Impeachment. Read more at: _____________________________ 
How You Can Help Stop the Iran Nuclear Deal Today Tomorrow Do you know what to do ..... List of all 34 DEMOCRATS siding with the Iran Deal and their DC Office number 
Sgt. Bartlett calls on Senators to reject the Iran deal
Kerry Admits Iran Can Flout Weapons Embargo Without Violating Nuclear Deal  Senator Chuck Schumer Dem
Two top congressional Democrats announce opposition to Iran nuclear deal
Published August 07, 2015FoxNews.com NOW PLAYING Jewish community leader not convinced Iran deal is good one Two top congressional Democrats announced late Thursday that they would oppose President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., the No. 3 Senate Democrat, and Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., the leading Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, both announced their objection to the deal in a blow to the Obama administration ahead of next month’s vote. Schumer, who said in a statement that he made his decision "after deep study, careful thought, and considerable soul-searching", is the first Senate Democrat to step forward to oppose the deal. His announcement came just hours after two other Senate Democrats — New York's Kirsten Gillibrand and New Hampshire's Jeanne Shaheen — announced their support for the international accord. Schumer's decision also puts him at odds with the Democrats' likely presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, who has cautiously embraced the deal. The Senate's No. 2 Democrat, Dick Durbin of Illinois, supports the accord and has been working hard to persuade lawmakers to do the same. The administration, which has lobbied intensely for the pact, had secured the backing of more than a dozen Senate Democrats and more than two dozen House Democrats, including Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Republicans, who control the House and Senate, are uniformly opposed to the deal. Schumer said in his statement that there is real risk that Iran "will not moderate" and will use the pact to "pursue its nefarious goals". He added that advocates on both sides of the debate made points that couldn’t be dismissed, but in the end he said he "must oppose the agreement and will vote yes on a motion of disapproval.” 
At the Minimum, Six Significant Strikes against the Nuclear Deal with Iran
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The very bad agreement reached yesterday between the Western powers and Iran underscores the weakness of the US; grants Iran nuclear legitimacy; spurs nuclear proliferation in the region; bolsters Iran’s ability to project force and support terrorism; changes the balance of power in the region in favor of Iran; and brings the US into sharp conflict with Israel, leading perhaps to an Israeli military strike on Iran. Prof. Efraim Inbar.. BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 301.. 15 July '15.. There are (at least) six significant and immediate bad results from the agreement reached yesterday between the Western powers and Iran. 1. America the weak: The way in which the negotiations were conducted underscored the weakness of the US. The Obama administration was willing to offer almost unlimited concessions to the skillful Iranian negotiators, ignoring all its own deadlines and red lines. It is clear that President Obama was desperate for a deal in order to leave office with a ”legacy.” While Washington congratulates itself on a “successful” result, what counts is the perceptions of the countries in the region. Alas, all countries in the region can only conclude that America is indeed weak. America has capitulated to Iran. 2. Nuclear legitimacy: Instead of insisting on the dismantling of all uranium enrichment facilities in Iran, as was accomplished in Libya, the US actually accorded international legitimacy to a large-scale Iranian 2. nuclear infrastructure, including thousands of centrifuges. The deal leaves almost intact all central components of the Iranian nuclear program. US Secretary of State John Kerry has in fact admitted that Iran might be just three months away from a nuclear bomb within the framework of the nuclear agreement. In doing so, the US has totally ignored UN Security Council Resolution 1696 of July 2006, which demanded that Iran suspend enrichment activities, as well as American demands for the dismantlement of the nuclear facilities. 3. Proliferation: This agreement is a stimulus for nuclear proliferation. Indeed, Saudi Arabia has announced its desire for “the same type of infrastructure” that has been allowed to Iran. It is to be expected that countries such as Egypt and Turkey will emulate Saudi Arabia. These states share Iranian ambitions for a leadership role in the region and it is highly unlikely they will refrain from acquiring capabilities that match Iran’s. Actually, the regional nuclear race has already begun and a multi-polar nuclear Middle East is on the way. This is a strategic nightmare. An American attempt to provide a nuclear umbrella (“extended deterrence”) to the Gulf States in order to forestall nuclear proliferation already has failed. Saudi King Salman refused to attend the US-Gulf State summit. This reflects disappointment with what Washington had to offer, and signals Saudi intentions to try to take care of itself on its own. 4. Force projection and terrorism: The international sanctions regime against Iran already has eroded. States and businesses already are lining-up to capitalize on the economic opportunities emerging in the Iranian market. The unfreezing of Iranian bank accounts and the projected increase in oil production will enrich the coffers of the Iranian regime with more than $100 billion. This will allow the diversion of many resources to an Iranian arms build-up, and will buttress Tehran’s aspiration to project force far beyond its borders. Moreover, the cash influx enhances Iranian capability for supporting proxies, such as the Shiite-controlled government in Iraq, Assad’s regime in Syria, Hizballah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and the Huties in Yemen. The Iranian capacity for subversion and for exporting terror will be greatly magnified. 5. Balance of power: The American decision to accept Iran as a nuclear-threshold state, and Obama’s statements in favor of a “responsible Iranian role” in the region, accompanied by an inflated American threat perception of ISIS – signal a most significant change in American Middle East foreign policy. This accord marks an end to Iran’s regional isolation. Instead, America seems to be siding with the Shiites against Sunnis. This move changes dramatically the regional balance of power, instilling even greater uncertainty in regional politics. The naïve American belief that Iran can become a “normal” state – will backfire. While cautious, Iran is nevertheless a “revisionist” power trying to undermine the status quo. It does not hide its hegemonic aspirations. Its subversive activities in Shiite Bahrain and the Shiite eastern province of Saudi Arabia (where most of the oil is), and in other Gulf countries, might create an unbearable situation for the West. Eventually, Iran might even attain its declared goal of putting an end to the American presence in the Persian Gulf. 6. Conflict with Israel: American policy is now on a collision course with Israel. The consensus in Israel is that Obama signed a very bad deal, which is dangerous for the Middle East and well beyond it. Israelis, as well as most Middle Easterners, do not buy the promise of a moderate Iran. They know better. Israelis take seriously the calls of the Iranian mobs “Death to America. Death to Israel.” Thus an Israeli military strike on Iran has become more likely, and in the near future – before the US puts the brakes on military supplies to the Israeli army. Link: Efraim Inbar, a professor of political studies at Bar-Ilan University, is the director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, and a fellow at the Middle East Forum. 
Can Congress stop the Iran deal?
By Amber Phillips July 14 Soon, that could be Obama's nuclear deal with Iran. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg) This post has been updated now that the Obama administration has reached a deal with Iran. Pretty soon, Congress could have an up-or-down vote on President Obama's nuclear deal with Iran. But don't let your lawmaker fool you: It's not written in stone that Congress has the right to approve or disapprove of major international negotiations. It's not even a law. The dirty little secret of U.S. international negotiations is this: Exactly how our government approves of most of this stuff is decided on a case-by-case basis. Depending on what the president calls a deal with another country -- is it a treaty? an executive agreement? -- and the political movement du jour, a deal like the one with Iran could need a two-thirds majority vote in the Senate to be approved or could slide by without any vote at all. What's happening right now is somewhere in the middle. Confused? We were too. So we called up professor Charles Stevenson, an American foreign policy expert at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, for clarification. Here's what you need to know to really understand what's going on with Congress and Iran -- and all other future negotiations. It's all in the name Let's go back to ninth-grade civics class for a minute. A treaty is basically a formal agreement between two countries -- it could be to limit nuclear weapons, it could establish the United Nations, it could agree to international space law. The list goes on. The Constitution says the Senate must approve any treaty the president wants to sign by a two-thirds majority vote. (As was alerted to us, it's a common misconception the Senate ratifies treaties: According to official Senate rules, it approves or disapproves of ratification of a treaty. But we digress.) The point is, getting 67 senators to agree on complex international negotiations is difficult. So in the 1930s, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt figured out a workaround: He simply wouldn't call his international negotiations treaties. There, problem solved. His "executive agreements" could now unilaterally be approved by him and only him. "When is a treaty not a treaty?" Stevenson said. "When it's not called a treaty." Otherwise: "There's no other difference." Naturally, other presidents picked up on this politically convenient avenue. According to some statistics, executive agreements are now signed in the United States more than treaties -- by a ratio of 10-to-1. (Also: In the eyes of international law, there's no difference between the two.) "That's the way the presidents have been since at least FDR," Stevenson said. "If they think they can get away with it, they'll do an executive agreement." In the 1960s, Congress caught on to this sly move and passed a law requiring presidents to notify the legislative branch of all executive actions signed. But that didn't really stop presidents from making treaties and calling them by another name. It just meant they had to give Congress notice. Obama threatens to veto bill stopping Iran deal(2:02) During his speech announcing the nuclear deal with Iran, President Obama said he welcomed robust discussion of the agreement but would ultimately veto legislation that "prevents the successful implementation of this deal." (AP) Here's what happens when Congress wants to chime in By 2015, the precedent allowing Obama to be the sole approver of most of his deals with other countries has become clear. But sometimes Congress wants a say on these deals -- especially when it politically suits them to do so. In that case, lawmakers must convince the president to let them have an up or down vote on the final deal. That's what happened with the Iran deal, which is unpopular with Republicans who don't want the United States to lift sanctions on the rogue nation. (Remember when GOP Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas wrote a letter to Iran's leaders urging them not sign a deal with Obama?) So Congress reached an agreement with Obama under which it can vote to void any deal that is reached with Iran. With the deal now wrapped up, Congress could vote very soon. Obama's pretty safe, though, because as was clear even when he agreed to allow Congress to vote, he can veto any "no" vote if it passes both chambers in the Republican-controlled Congress. At that point, Republicans would need to get many Democrats to join them to overturn the veto. As you may have guessed, congressional oversight of international deals can blow with the political winds of the moment. Stevenson pointed to a 2008 agreement between the United States and Iraq on how American troops would be treated in Iraq as a good example. At first, leaders in the Democratic-controlled Congress thought they should vote on something so important and were about to ask President George W. Bush to give them that vote. But then they realized the deal included a date on when American troops would come home, and by approving it, they'd have to put their members on the record for the politically difficult decision. So they backed off and let the president ink the deal by himself. Boehner: Iran deal is ‘unacceptable’(1:24) House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has warned the White House that if Republicans don't think the newly announced nuclear deal with Iran is a good one, they will block it. (AP) Stevenson said the reverse happened in 2001 when Bush was signing a nuclear non-proliferation deal with Russia. Russian leaders wanted him to have to publicly defend the deal -- and therefore Russia -- so they would only cooperate if Bush agreed to make it an actual treaty. One more thing…. There's one more international agreement we should mention: A trade agreement. With Obama narrowly getting approval from Congress last month to negotiate two of these deals with Europe and Pacific Rim nations, that's also been in the news recently. [The trade deal, explained for people who fall asleep hearing about trade deals] Trade agreements have much clearer standards for approval. A president wanting to make one usually goes to Congress and gets the OK to negotiate the deal -- a mechanism known as Trade Promotion Authority -- with informal input from Congress. (This is what Congress has provided Obama -- after some fits and starts.) As part of the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), Congress gets a final yea-or-nay vote on the deal. Which in practice sounds a lot like the Iran deal. But it's not. It's a trade agreement. (And Stevenson thinks Obama should have gone to Congress a lot sooner to get authority to negotiate TPA. But that's a whole other post we'll write some other time.) The big takeaway OK, we hope we didn't confuse you too much. The basic thing we want you to take away from this is the difference between a treaty (which has to be approved by the Senate) and an executive agreement (a treaty-except-not-officially-called-that which doesn't have to be approved by the Senate but that sometimes Congress gets to vote on.) And if you had to read that several times to get it, take heart that our country's method for approving international deals is so convoluted, it even confuses the experts. "There are a lot of moving parts in this," Stevenson said, "and it's unclear to me which accelerator or brake is held in every case by the president, or the Congress or somebody else." Foreign policy, ladies and gentlemen. 
Nuclear program of Iran
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Nuclear program of Iran
This article may be too long to read and navigate comfortably. Please consider splitting content into sub-articles and/or condensing it. (October 2013)The nuclear program of Iran was launched in the 1950s with the help of the United States as part of the Atoms for Peace program.[1] The participation of the United States and Western European governments in Iran's nuclear program continued until the 1979 Iranian Revolution that toppled the Shah of Iran.[2] After the 1979 revolution, a clandestine nuclear weapons research program was disbanded by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1902-1989), who considered such weapons forbidden under Muslim ethics and jurisprudence.[3] Iran has signed treaties repudiating the possession of weapons of mass destruction including the Biological Weapons Convention,[4] the Chemical Weapons Convention,[5] and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).[6] Iran's nuclear program has included several research sites, two uranium mines, a research reactor, and uranium processing facilities that include three known uranium enrichment plants.[7] Iran's first nuclear power plant, Bushehr I reactor was complete with major assistance of Russian government agency Rosatom and officially opened on 12 September 2011.[8] Iran has announced that it is working on a new 360 MW nuclear power plant to be located in Darkhovin. The Russian engineering contractor Atomenergoprom said the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant would reach full capacity by the end of 2012.[9] Iran has also indicated that it will seek more medium-sized nuclear power plants and uranium mines in the future.[10] In a 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, the United States Intelligence Community assessed that Iran had ended all "nuclear weapon design and weaponization work" in 2003.[11] In 2012, U.S. intelligence agencies reported that Iran was pursuing research that could enable it to produce nuclear weapons, but was not attempting to do so.[12] In November 2011, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors criticized Iran after an IAEA report concluded that before 2003 Iran likely had undertaken research and experiments geared to developing a nuclear weapons capability.[13] The IAEA report details allegations that Iran conducted studies related to nuclear weapons design, including detonator development, the multiple-point initiation of high explosives, and experiments involving nuclear payload integration into a missile delivery vehicle.[14] A number of Western nuclear experts have stated there was very little new in the report, that it primarily concerned Iranian activities prior to 2003,[15] and that media reports exaggerated its significance.[16] Iran threatened to reduce its cooperation with the IAEA.[17][18] Read more at.. click Here  (Wendy Sherman/Getty Images)
Lead U.S. Negotiator Says She Didn't See 'Final Documents' in Iran Deal
By Melissa Clyne | Wednesday, 05 Aug 2015 01:19 PM While President Barack Obama delivered his much anticipated speech on the Iran nuclear deal — hoping to appeal to congressional Democrats who could sink or save the agreement — the only administration official to have purportedly seen "side deals between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency" has disclosed that the team was privy to only rough drafts, The Hill reports. "I didn't see the final documents. I saw the provisional documents, as did my experts," said Wendy Sherman, the Obama administration's undersecretary of state for political affairs, who was one of the deal's lead negotiators. Sherman appeared before a Senate Banking Committee hearing on Wednesday. Sherman, according to The Hill, said she and her team were only permitted access to the side deals, which include Iran's earlier efforts on a bomb and access to its Parchin military site, "in the middle of the negotiation when the IAEA wanted to go over with some of our experts the technical details." The side deals, she said, remain confidential and can't be submitted to Congress. According to USA Today, citing the White House, Obama is arguing in the speech that the nuclear deal represents "the most consequential foreign policy debate since the decision to go to war in Iraq." The same politicians who supported the Iraq War are opposed to diplomacy with Iran, he points out, and "that it would be an historic mistake to squander this opportunity." Sherman defended to the Senate Banking Committee the administration's decision to allow the confidentiality agreements "despite the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act demanding all related agreements, because the administration wanted the IAEA to respect the confidentiality of their agreements with the U.S.," The Hill reports. "We want to protect U.S. confidentiality ... this is a safeguards protocol," said Sherman. "The IAEA protects our confidential understandings ... between the United States and the IAEA." Later in the hearing she tweaked her position, saying she was shown "documents that I believed to be the final documents, but whether there were any further discussions …" Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com ___________________________ |
US blames Iran for tanker attacks in Gulf of Oman
June 14, 2019 Sailors aboard the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Bainbridge render aid to the crew of the Kokuka Courageous, one of two oil tankers suspected to have been attacked in the Gulf of Oman, June 13, 2019. (Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Jason Waite, U.S. Navy via AP)  Win McNamee/Getty Images
EMBARRASSING: Europeans Realizing Trump Was Right About Iran
By HANK BERRIEN December 6, 2018 It must be murder for them to admit it, but suddenly Western European leaders are realizing President Trump was right about ditching the Iran nuclear treaty. On Tuesday, diplomats from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and France expressed their concern because of an Iranian medium-range ballistic missile test on Saturday. The U.S. government stated that the missile Iran tested could reach Europe and the Middle East. According to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the missile could carry multiple warheads and violated Security Council Resolution 2231, which instructed Iran to refrain from “any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology.” That Security Council resolution was the implementation of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA). President Trump walked away from the deal last May, although China, France, Germany, Russia and the U.K. stayed with the deal. But after the missile test, the U.K. and France called a closed-door meeting of the Security Council. The government of France stated, “France is concerned by the launch of a medium-range ballistic missile by Iran on Saturday. It condemns this provocative and destabilizing act. France reiterates that the Iranian ballistic missile program is not in compliance with UNSCR 2231 (2015). It calls on Iran to immediately cease any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be able to carry nuclear weapons, including launches using ballistic missile technology.” As Fox News reports, the European ambassadors joined in expressing their concern: U.K. Ambassador Karen Pierce called the actions "part and parcel of Iran's destabilizing activities in the region." Her comments echo U.K. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who said Saturday that he was “deeply concerned by Iran’s actions," even as he reiterated support for the nuclear deal. “Provocative, threatening and inconsistent with UNSCR 2231. Our support for JCPoA in no way lessens our concern at Iran’s destabilising missile programme and determination that it should cease,” he tweeted. Dutch Ambassador Karel van Oosterom added, “This kind of ballistic missile activity is inconsistent with the JCPoA , especially Annex B which calls on Iran not to engage in these kinds of activities.” Even French Ambassador François Delattre avowed the test was "inconsistent" with the resolution, urging Iran to "immediately cease any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be able to carry nuclear weapons, including launches using ballistic missile technology." Still, the group displayed its usual pusillanimous attitude when it came to Iran, with the resolution stating it only “calls upon” Iran to stop its ballistic tests instead of demanding a cessation. On Tuesday, U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley, in her typically blunt manner, stated that the ballistic test was "dangerous and concerning, but not surprising" adding, “The United States has repeatedly warned the world about Iran’s deliberate efforts to destabilize the Middle East and defy international norms. The international community cannot keep turning a blind eye every time Iran blatantly ignores Security Council resolutions. If the Security Council is serious about holding Iran accountable and enforcing our resolutions, then at a minimum we should be able to deliver a unanimous condemnation of this provocative missile test." Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), echoed, “The United States has only begun to reverse the damage done by Obama's Iran nuclear deal, which gave the Ayatollahs the resources and diplomatic breathing room to build more and better ballistic missiles. The last round of sanctions, while important, clearly failed to deter Iran from advancing their missile program. It's time to totally cut off Iran from the global financial system and deny them the resources they're using to threaten us and our allies.” __________________________ Iran protests: Why people are taking to the streets - BBC News__________________________
Islamic Republic’s New Navy Commander Looks to ‘Fly Iranian Flag in the Gulf of Mexico’
by Ben Cohen Iran’s new naval chief, Rear Adm. Hossein Khanzadi. Photo: TNA. The new chief of the Iranian navy declared on Wednesday that the Tehran regime intends to “soon” send ships across the Atlantic Ocean to visit Latin American countries and “fly the Iranian flag in the Gulf of Mexico.” Speaking to official Iranian media outlets, Rear Adm. Hossein Khanzadi said that the Islamic Republic plans to “unveil new vessels and submarines” that can operate effectively in international waters. The announcement comes following several weeks of Iranian military successes on the ground in Iraq, Kurdistan and Syria, all of which have boosted Tehran’s aim of securing an uninterrupted land corridor between Iran’s western borders and the Mediterranean coast. Khanzadi was appointed to lead the navy on Nov. 6 by Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. At his inauguration ceremony on Nov. 8, Khanzadi’s predecessor, Rear Adm. Habibollah Sayyari, stated that “sailing in open waters between Europe and Americas should be the Navy’s goal, which will be realized in the near future.” According to Sayyari, Khanzadi takes the helm of the Iranian navy at a time of visible expansion in its own region. Sayyari said that Iran has sent 47 warship flotillas into international waters since 2008. During that time, Iran has escorted more than 4,000 cargo ships and oil tankers in the strategic Gulf of Aden, located between Yemen and Somalia, and the Red Sea. NOVEMBER 22, 2017 10:58 AM 0Wits University Student Says Antisemitism, Holocaust Denial Rampant Among BDS Advocates in South AfricaA student at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa has condemned the “addiction” progressive activists have for the... Sayyari has also urged the deployment of Iran’s 47th fleet as a security force for the entire Red Sea. In February 2017, the Pentagon deployed two further US navy destroyers to patrol opposite ends of the 1,400 mile stretch of water. The US Navy’s stated policy is to retain “a continuous combat-ready force within the Arabian Gulf, Gulf of Oman, Arabian Sea, Gulf of Aden and Red Sea to protect the free flow of commerce, reassure our allies and partners, and deter acts of aggression against our forces and our partners.” ________________________ 
IRAN'S NUCLEAR TIMETABLE ... RIGHT NOW!
Obama allowing Tehran to enrich uranium, stockpile ingredients Published: JEROME R. CORSI About | Email | Archive NEW YORK – Amid the disclosure this week that the Obama administration has allowed Iran to continue secret efforts to enrich uranium and stockpile the heavy water needed to produce a plutonium nuclear weapon, a leading expert on the Iranian nuclear program remains concerned that Tehran could build a deliverable atomic bomb now. “I believe Iran already has a nuclear weapons capability,” Clare Lopez, a former CIA career operations officer who serves as the vice president for research and analysis at the Washington-based Center for Security Policy and a senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research, told WND. Lopez noted that five years ago the International Atomic Energy Agency published a report on Iran’s nuclear program that listed the various technical components in a nuclear weapon that Iran had under development. “We know for a fact that Iran already has the nuclear-capable missiles, including nose cones configured to carry nuclear weapons,” she said. “We also know that the IAEA years ago reported that Iran was working on forming the hemispheres of a bomb, as well as experiments testing the explosive charges required to set off a nuclear reaction implosion sequence.” Now more than ever, Bill and Hill are “Partners in Crime.” Jerome Corsi reveals “The Clintons’ scheme to monetize the White House for personal profit.” On Tuesday, Iranian officials announced the country is preparing to launch into space three new satellites, prompting U.S. defense experts to speculate the Iranian satellite program is a cover for pursuing illicit intercontinental ballistic missile technology the Islamic Republic could use to deliver a nuclear weapon over long distances. Help from North Korea Lopez pointed out that Iran could easily obtain nuclear weapons technology from North Korea. “We have documented evidence Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officials have attended North Korean ballistic missile and nuclear tests,” she stressed. “Further, North Korea has offered for sale virtually any technology the country has ever developed.” On March 10, 2016, retired Admiral William E. Gortney, former commander, United States Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command, testified about North Korea’s nuclear weapons capabilities before the Senate Armed Services Committee. “North Korea’s recent hostile cyberspace activity, nuclear testing, and continued ballistic missile development represent a dangerous threat to our national security,” Gortney told the committee in his prepared remarks. “North Korea’s recent nuclear test and satellite launch demonstrate Kim Jong Un’s commitment to developing strategic capabilities, as well as his disregard for United Nations Security Council resolutions. He said the North Korean communist regime’s “efforts to develop and deploy the road-mobile KN08 ICBM have profound implications for homeland missile defense, primarily because the missile obviates most of the pre-launch indicators on which we have traditionally relied to posture our defenses.” “While the KN08 remains untested, modeling suggests it could deliver a nuclear payload to much of the continental United States,” Gortney continued. The Washington Free Beacon reported in March 2015 Iran is believed to be hiding the development of nuclear weapons technology at a mountain military base in North Korea near the Chinese border as part of a technical cooperation pact signed by Iran and North Korea in September 2012. Iran ICBM capable by 2020 Gortney also testified that he remained concerned about Iran’s nuclear weapons program. “Iran poses multiple significant security concerns to the United States, and I remain wary of its strategic trajectory. Last year’s conclusion of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was a welcome development, but, Iran’s continuing pursuit of long-range missile capabilities and ballistic missile and space launch programs, in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions, remains a serious concern,” Gortney said. “Iran has successfully orbited satellites using a first- generation space launch vehicle and announced plans to orbit a larger satellite using its ICBM- class booster as early as this year,” he continued. “In light of these advances, we assess Iran may be able to deploy an operational ICBM by 2020 if the regime chooses to do so.” Lopez also explained she was concerned that North Korea might share with Iran the technology necessary to launch successfully an electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) attack against the U.S., even before Iran had an ICBM capable of hitting the continental United States. On April 24, WND reported that North Korea now has two satellites orbiting over the United States capable of performing a surprise EMP attack at an altitude and trajectory that evade U.S. National Missile Defenses. An EMP could be triggered by a nuclear weapon detonated at high altitude. The pulse could knock out the U.S. national electrical grid system and all life-sustaining critical infrastructures, including the Internet. Now more than ever, Bill and Hill are “Partners in Crime.” Jerome Corsi reveals “The Clintons’ scheme to monetize the White House for personal profit.” Read more at _________________________ 
Boeing hit with lawsuit over Iran airliner deal
By World Tribune on June 19, 2016 by WorldTribune Staff, June 19, 2016 An Israeli non-governmental organization (NGO) said it will sue Boeing if it proceeds with the sale of its airplanes to Iran. Israel Law Center (Shurat HaDin) on June 16 said it will place liens on any Boeing sales to Iran. Iran plans to buy 100 aircraft from Boeing.The NGO, which represents the families of victims of Iranian-sponsored terrorism who are owed billions of dollars in unsatisfied U.S. court judgments, says Iran needs to pay the families before it can purchase the planes. On June 14, Iran announced an agreement in principle with Boeing for the purchase of 100 aircraft. The deal is subject to final U.S. government approval and several U.S. congressmen have voiced their opposition, saying the aircraft could end being used to transport Iranian troops, weapons and cash to support terrorism. Shurat HaDin stressed that the nuclear deal the U.S. and world powers signed with Iran, which lifted many sanctions, “did not extinguish American judgments held by the terrorism victims it represents,” which means the NGO can serve liens on anything Iran purchases. “It is shocking that a company like Boeing would enter into a business deal with the outlaw regime in Teheran,” Shurat HaDin director Nitsana Darshan-Leitner said. Darshan-Leitner noted Iran’s support for Hamas and Hizbullah and said that “the unsatisfied federal court judgments being held by the victims of Iranian terror amount to many billions of dollars, and these must be paid off.” No comment was available from Boeing. _________________________ 
White House’s lies on Iran deal is humiliating for Chuck Schumer
By Post Editorial Board May 6, 2016 | 8:45pm Modal Trigger Sen. Chuck Schumer Photo: Getty Images We hope Sens. Chuck Schumer, Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand are giving that devastating new profile of President Obama’s foreign-policy guru a careful read. Because they’ll learn how they were all played for fools on the Iran nuclear deal by that aide, Ben Rhodes — and the president. That applies especially to Schumer, who will be the Senate Democratic leader come January. Booker and Gillibrand hewed to the party line in backing the deal. Schumer gave it a thumb’s-down — but then refused to lobby his colleagues to take his side. Sen. Bob Menendez, on the other hand, is looking better than ever. He not only forcefully denounced the deal, he laid out a clear and cogent alternative. Now Rhodes is openly boasting in a New York Times Magazine profile how Team Obama (with the help of gullible journalists) resorted to outright lies and deceit to sell the deal to Congress. Like the fiction that the deal was initiated by the “breakthrough” when a “moderate” beat the “hard-liners” to become Iran’s president in 2013 and reached out to Obama. Nonsense: Rhodes admits planning for a deal began right after Obama took office, with the details hammered out by the State Department in 2012 — which is when talks with Iran actually began. Former CIA Director Leon Panetta even puts the lie to the notion that Team Obama believed the new president meant anything: “There was no question that the Quds Force and the supreme leader ran that country with a strong arm.” Panetta, who also served as secretary of defense, repeatedly assured the Israelis (and Congress) that Obama would never let Iran develop nuclear weapons. Today, he says, “Would I make that same assessment now? Probably not.” The Times piece recounts how a 30-year-old aspiring novelist with no experience was put in charge of crafting foreign policy by a president who shared his contempt for the experts and conviction that anyone who disagrees is a warmonger. Cabinet secretaries like Panetta — and Hillary Clinton — were irrelevant. Well, senators, now you know the infuriating — and, for you, humiliating — truth. What do you plan to do about it? _________________________ 
Iran has more missiles than it can hide: General Hossein Salami
By i24news Published: 01/01/2016 - 04:22pm, updated: 04:46pm credits/photos : ATTA KENARE (AFP/FILE) Iranian missiles are displayed at a park in northern Tehran 'We lack enough space in our stockpiles to house our missiles,' said General Hossein SalamiIran's Revolutionary Guards have so many missiles they don't know where to hide them, a senior commander said at Friday prayers, after the United States threatened to impose fresh sanctions. "We lack enough space in our stockpiles to house our missiles," said General Hossein Salami, the Guards' deputy, as a row with the US over Iran's ballistic missile program deepened. "Hundreds of long tunnels are full of missiles ready to fly to protect your integrity, independence and freedom," he told worshippers in Tehran, promising to never "stop developing our defense deterrent". Iranian state television aired in October unprecedented footage of such an underground missile base. The general's comments came after reports that the US had planned -- but later shelved -- to unveil a fresh round of sanctions following two recent missile tests by the Islamic republic. The mooted financial penalties on companies and individuals in Iran, Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates, for apparent links to Tehran's missile program, highlighted worsening US-Iran relations. They also put in jeopardy a landmark deal struck in July between Iran and six world powers including the US, which is due to be formally implemented within weeks. Iran's President Hassan Rouhani denounced the US moves Thursday as "hostile and illegal interventions" that must be met with a response. He ordered the military to intensify its missile development and take whatever steps necessary to start new programs if they would better serve Iran's defense. After Rouhani's comments the White House put the sanctions on hold indefinitely, The Wall Street Journal reported, though officials said the measures remained on the table for use if necessary. The spectre of new penalties against Iran -- the nuclear deal is due to lift existing sanctions that froze Iran out of the global financial system and crippled its oil exports -- brought worsening relations to a head. A United Nations panel last month said the two missile tests breached previous resolutions aimed at stopping the Islamic republic from developing projectiles capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. Iran has always denied seeking an atomic weapon and argues that its missiles would never be designed to, nor ever carry, such a bomb. The nuclear deal is due to come into effect on "Implementation Day", expected later this month, or soon after, when UN monitors sign off that Iran has applied major curbs to its atomic program. (AFP) Read more: White House to delay new Iran sanctions: report 
House GOP wants McConnell to go nuclear on Iran agreement
By Julian Hattem - 09/16/15 06:00 AM EDT Multiple House Republicans want Senate leaders to “go nuclear” over the Obama administration’s deal with Iran now that Democrats have stymied efforts to derail the accord by conventional means. A small but growing number of GOP lawmakers say that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) should invoke the “nuclear option” to change Senate rules and prevent a filibuster on a resolution to kill the deal. Their angst is intensified by their belief that Democrats will likely be able to block legislation withholding federal funds from Planned Parenthood, a standoff that increases the chances of a government shutdown. Less than two years after Republicans railed against Democrats for changing the rules to prevent filibusters on most presidential nominees, McConnell has ruled out using the nuclear strategy. But the call puts more pressure on the majority leader and illustrates Republicans’ growing frustration with their inability to score significant victories in Congress, even while controlling both chambers. “This was something with the Iran deal, the fact that it didn’t get debated, it didn’t get voted on — there’s a lot of people that are very, very upset about this,” said Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) in an interview on Tuesday, a day after he sent a letter asking McConnell to change the Senate’s rules. Buchanan said that he wants to see the upper chamber eliminate the filibuster entirely, though others are calling for a more modest step to get rid of the procedural holdup only in specific cases, such as with the Iran deal. Rep. Steven Palazzo (R-Miss.) wrote a letter to McConnell last week calling for a change in rules for the Iran bill. Rep. Lamar Smith (R- Texas) — chairman of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee — is currently circulating a letter among fellow lawmakers with a similar call. “Some pieces of legislation, like the Iran nuclear deal, are simply so consequential that they demand revisions to the Senate’s procedures,” Smith wrote in the draft letter. “Our request to eliminate the filibuster for some votes simply underscores that in a democracy the majority should decide,” he added. “The super-majority now required to advance legislation is 60 votes, which is not serving our country well.” McConnell previously faced some pressure to change the filibuster rules during a fight over immigration earlier in the year. But the furor over the Iran deal has opened the door to wider criticism. Republicans say the rule change would just be a natural extension of Democrats’ decision in late 2013 to prevent filibusters of presidential nominees except for those to the Supreme Court. Now, some Republicans say, it’s merely time for Democrats to reap what they have sown. “If Minority Leader [Harry] Reid [D-Nev.] was willing to use this tactic to push through something as simple as judicial nominees despite the objections of Republicans, it is time that Republican leadership utilize the procedure as a matter of national and global security,” Palazzo wrote in his letter. Still, they acknowledge that even making the change would ultimately fail to scuttle the Iran deal, because President Obama could veto the legislation once it got to his desk. But the shake-up would erode the image of dysfunction in Washington, supporters claim, and show that Congress can work again. “Because of the dysfunction, because of the Iran deal ... [which] probably was the tipping point, [there’s a sense] that the place just doesn’t work,” said Buchanan. “That’s the general feeling of the majority of Americans today. “That’s why you see outsiders with 51 percent of the vote in terms of Republicans on our side,” he added, referring to the recent surge of businessman Donald Trump and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson in the GOP presidential race. So far the call has been limited to the House, which has little input in the processes of the upper chamber. But there might be some support in the Senate as well. Last week, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that he was “in favor of exploring” a rule change. McCain hedged his support, however, warning that it “would set a dangerous precedent” and open “charges ... of me being a hypocrite.” Yet the seriousness of the Iran deal “argues for us to look at any possible option that we can,” McCain said. Still, McConnell has no plans to explore the idea. “He does not support the nuclear option,” spokesman Don Stewart told The Hill in an email. It’s easy to see why. As McCain made clear in his radio interview, Republicans excoriated Democrats for changing the rules in 2013, and would open themselves up to charges of hypocrisy if they followed suit. Not to mention the likelihood that someday, Republicans will no longer be in control of the Senate. Still, declining to explore alternate avenues will surely expose McConnell to additional flak from the right. In response to a conservative revolt — which manifested itself in repeated boos during a Tea Party-backed rally against the Iran deal outside the Capitol — Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) last week changed the House’s game plan for the Iran bill to open the door for additional actions, including a lawsuit against the White House. McConnell has threatened additional votes on the Iran deal that may be compromising for Democrats, but he has remained steadfast on the filibuster threshold. “The Senate leader needs to look at filibusters to be just that — filibusters where people have to stand and talk,” Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), who has repeatedly served as a thorn in GOP leaders’ side, said in a recent interview with The Hill. “Most of us watched Jimmy Stewart [in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”] and that was our idea of what a filibuster was, not casting a vote and seeing if you get to 60 votes and going out and having a steak.” Scott Wong contributed __________________________  "If Iran decides to break the agreement, it will regret breaking any promise it has made," Secretary of State John Kerry said. CreditMatt Slocum/Associated Press
Coordinated Strategy Brings Obama Victory on Iran Nuclear Deal
By CARL HULSE and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN SEPT. 2, 2015 WASHINGTON — Just before the Senate left town for its August break, a dozen or so undecided Democrats met in the Capitol with senior diplomats from Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia who delivered a blunt, joint message: Their nuclear agreement with Iran was the best they could expect. The five world powers had no intention of returning to the negotiating table. “They basically said unanimously this is as good a deal as you could get and we are moving ahead with it,” recalled Senator Chris Coons, the Delaware Democrat who lent crucial support to the deal this week despite some reservations. “They were clear and strong that we will not join you in re-imposing sanctions.” For many if not most Democrats, it was that message that ultimately solidified their decisions, leading to President Obama on Wednesday securing enough votes to put the agreement in place over fierce and united Republican opposition. One after another, lawmakers pointed to the warnings from foreign leaders that their own sanctions against Iran would be lifted regardless of what the United States did. Continue reading the main storyBreaking News AlertsSign up to receive an email from The New York Times as soon as important news breaks around the world. But the president’s potentially legacy-defining victory — a highly partisan one in the end — was also the result of an aggressive, cooperative strategy between the White House and congressional Democrats to forcefully push back against Republican critics, whose allies had begun a determined, $20 million-plus campaign to kill the deal. Overwhelmed by Republicans and conservatives in previous summers when political issues like the health care legislation were effectively put on trial, Democrats sought to make sure that momentum remained behind the president on the Iran agreement in both the Senate and the House. Under the direction of Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader, and a team of lieutenants, House Democrats orchestrated a daily roll-out of endorsements of the Iran deal from a Capitol war room, tucked into Ms. Pelosi’s office just off the House chamber. They parceled out their statements to make clear that House members were closing ranks behind the agreement and distributed letters of support from colleagues and respected outside experts to both wavering colleagues and the news media. They pushed back against reports they believed wrongly threatened the deal. “There was a plan, and there continues to be a plan,” Ms. Pelosi said in an interview. “My goal was to have 100 by the end of the week, and we will exceed that.” She acknowledged that the memories of the previous summer health care fight were “useful because I could say to people that we have to be proactive because I know the other side will be.” The administration, too, went all-out. At the White House, administration staff members set up their own West Wing war room and even created a separate Twitter account, @TheIranDeal, to make their case. Cabinet members and other senior administration officials talked directly with more than 200 House members and senators. The president spoke personally to about 100 lawmakers, either individually or in small groups, and aides said he called 30 lawmakers during his August vacation on Martha’s Vineyard. One senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss White House strategy said Energy Secretary Ernest J. Moniz, a nuclear physicist who helped negotiate the deal, was a “secret weapon” in selling it to lawmakers. Not only did he know the science, he could explain it clearly, persuasively and without the condescension some heard in Secretary of State John Kerry’s presentations. Some of Mr. Kerry’s arguments, however, did resonate, especially when he quoted two prominent Israeli security experts who made favorable public comments about the Iran deal: Efraim Halevy, the former director of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, and Ami Ayalon, the former director of the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service. Several lawmakers said the two Israelis provided a counterbalance to the forceful speech opposing the agreement that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made in Congress in March. Indeed, Mr. Netanyahu and his allies may well have overplayed their hands. The campaign to kill the nuclear accord was not aimed at persuading Democrats so much as scaring them. In the end, that helped turn the debate into yet another partisan showdown without the gravity many feared it would attain. Continue reading the main story The Iran Deal in 200 Words Opponents of the agreement said they could not remember another recent policy battle where the White House and Ms. Pelosi were so driven. In tandem, they made the Iran vote a strong test of party loyalty. Not all of the Democrats’ efforts helped their cause. Some lawmakers said they were put off by the president’s insistence that the only alternative to the Iran deal would be war. And even some supporters of the pactsaid they were disturbed by the administration’s criticism of Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the No. 3 Democrat, who was one of just two in the party, along with Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, to publicly declare opposition. Although the announcement on Wednesday by Senator Barbara A. Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland, that she would back the deal meant that a presidential veto could not be overridden in the Senate, critics of the agreement said they would continue to press lawmakers to oppose it. Ultimately, they said, Democrats would be held accountable for their votes. “For pro-Israel activists, this is a once-in-a-generation vote,” said Patrick Dorton, a spokesman for Citizens for a Nuclear Free Iran, which spent more than $20 million in a national media campaign against the deal. Other opponents predicted that Democrats would rue their votes if Iran violated the agreement. One Republican official said the campaign against it was also hurt by the intense August media focus on Donald J. Trump’s dominance of the Republican presidential primary race and Hillary Rodham Clinton’s handling of State Department emails. The opponents noted the Obama victory promises to be narrow and dependent solely on Democratic votes. “We believe that this strong opposition conveys an important message to the world — especially foreign banks, businesses and governments — about the severe doubts in America concerning Iran’s willingness to meet its commitments and the long-term viability of this agreement,” said Marshall Wittmann, a spokesman for the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee. Ned Price, spokesman for the White House’s National Security Council, said Wednesday: “The president and his team continue to be deeply engaged in making sure that all those interested in the deal understand why this is the best approach to preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. We are encouraged by the growing number of lawmakers who have announced support for the deal in the past weeks — all echoing the same arguments the president has been making for several months.” Some Democrats clearly agonized over the decision. But some who came out in support of the deal said the outside pressure was ineffective largely because the substance of the debate was too important and too complex. In an interview, Mr. Casey said the unwillingness of the other five powers to renegotiate was a major factor in his decision as well as the importance of keeping America’s allies unified. “I would want to put us in a position,” he said, “where the same kind of unity on sanctions could be brought to bear on deterrence, which ultimately could be a military strike.” In the end, one administration official said two things broke in Mr. Obama’s favor: an absence of outrage when lawmakers went back home for the summer recess, and a failure of the opponents to develop a credible alternative to the deal as it was negotiated in Vienna on July 14. More important, the official said, an expected Republican alternative approach — an argument that Congress should simply ignore the accord and try to keep the existing interim accord in place — “never got beyond a few talking points.” That was not obvious in late July and early August. R. Nicholas Burns, the former under secretary of state for policy, noted recently that at hearings where he testified in favor of the deal, “Republicans dominated the hearings. They are united, have a common position against the deal and are assertive.” Many Democrats said they were persuaded on the merits, including a point stressed by Mr. Moniz, the energy secretary, that the International Atomic Energy Agency would have technology that could catch even the most minute trace amounts of radioactive material, and help expose any cheating on the deal by Iran. They also heard from experts who said that a 15-year limit on fissile material, the makings of a nuclear weapon, would do more to slow Iran’s production of a nuclear weapon than a military attack, which intelligence experts said would only delay a weapons program by three years. On Wednesday, with victory secured, Mr. Kerry still sought to reassure skeptics. “If Iran decides to break the agreement, it will regret breaking any promise it has made,” he said in an hourlong speech in Philadelphia. The outcome left Democrats celebrating, assured of the president’s power to follow through on the deal — an outcome they said was crucial to upholding American’s international standing. “Our ability to build coalitions, to lead, to have credibility when we enter into a negotiation was really on the line,” said Representative Jan Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat who organized the Iran deal strategy with Ms. Pelosi, with whom she consulted almost daily while lawmakers were scattered in their districts around the country. “To walk away now would diminish our ability to lead on future issues.” David E. Sanger and Michael R. Gordon contributed reporting. _________________________ 
WorldViews
Saudi Prince Bandar: The U.S. nuclear pact with North Korea failed. The Iran deal is worse. By Adam Taylor July 16 Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan seen at his palace in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in June 2008. (Hassan Ammar/AP) Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to the United States between 1981 and 2005, has written a damning column in which he compares the Iran nuclear deal to the failed nuclear deal with North Korea -- and concludes it will have even worse consequences. Writing for the London-based Arabic news Web site Elaph, Badar suggests that President Obama is knowingly making a bad deal, while President Bill Clinton had made a deal with North Korea with the best intentions and the best information he had. The new deal will "wreak havoc" in the Middle East, which is already destabilized due to Iranian actions, Bandar writes. Writing about the failed deal with North Korea, which was agreed in 1994 and collapsed in 2003, Bandar says, "it turned out that the strategic foreign policy analysis was wrong and there was a major intelligence failure." He added that if Clinton had known the full picture, "I am absolutely confident he would not have made that decision." The Saudi royal then contrasts this with the present situation with Iran, "where the strategic foreign policy analysis, the national intelligence information, and America’s allies in the region's intelligence all predict not only the same outcome of the North Korean nuclear deal but worse – with the billions of dollars that Iran will have access to." Bandar says Obama is smart enough to understand this but that he is ideologically willing to accept collateral damage because he believes he is right. The United States and North Korea signed the Agreed Framework in 1994, after North Korea announced its intention to withdraw from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Under the agreement, North Korea committed to freezing its nuclear weapons program in exchange for aid, causing significant controversy in the United States. The next U.S. administration, led by President George W. Bush, took a much more aggressive stance on the agreement, and in 2002 it confronted North Korea with accusations that it had been attempting a clandestine uranium-enrichment program. In response, North Korea restarted its nuclear program, and the country withdrew from the NPT in 2003. Subsequent attempts to reach an agreement over nuclear weapons have failed. North Korea conducted its first nuclear test in 2006 and is currently believed to possess around 10 to 16 nuclear weapons (exact estimates vary). Experts say it is working to improve upon the size and sophistication of its nuclear arsenal. Bandar is far from the first to contrast the situation in 1994 and now: The failure of the talks with North Korea has been a specter hanging over the talks with Iran. However, there's disagreement over how to interpret any lessons taught by the failure of the North Korean deal: As The Post's Glenn Kessler has written, the Agreed Framework may have failed, but it did stall North Korea's nuclear ambitions. Analysts have pointed out that the two situations have many differences. The Carnegie Endowment's George Perkovich, for example, has argued that Iran has stronger incentives to stick to a deal than North Korea ever did. Bandar is a major voice in Saudi foreign affairs. He was the longest-serving Saudi ambassador to Washington and headed the Saudi intelligence services between 2012 and 2014. His conclusion will carry weight in some circles: "People in my region now are relying on God’s will, and consolidating their local capabilities and analysis with everybody else except our oldest and most powerful ally," he writes. The Saudi prince says the new Iran deal and other developments in the region have led him to conclude that a phrase first used by Henry Kissinger – “America’s enemies should fear America, but America’s friends should fear America more" – is correct.  The Pentagon, in Washington, D.C.
Photo Credit: David B. Gleason
Military Officers Come Out Strongly Against Nuclear Iran Deal 190 military officers signed a letter to the Congressional leadership, warning against the Nuclear Iran Deal. By: Lori Lowenthal Marcus Published: August 27th, 2015 President Obama and fellow supporters of the Nuclear Iran Deal boasted that it must be the right deal because they were able to gather 36 military officers to endorse it. Well, a group of five volunteers in less than a week were able to gather more than 190 retired officers to sign on to a letter in opposition to the deal. Those officers include 22 Admirals and 4 star generals, 46 vice admirals and lieutenant generals, 96 Rear admirals and Major Generals and 24 brigadier generals. The letter they signed unequivocally states that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action signed by the United States and its partners in the P5+1, rather than “‘cut[ting] off every pathway’ for Iran to acquire nuclear weapons,” instead actually “provides Iran with a legitimate path to doing that simply by abiding by the deal.” The letter, the full text of which appears below, was delivered on Wednesday, Aug. 26, to the Speaker of the House, John Boehner, the House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. The volunteers who gathered the signatures were led by Marsha Halteman, who has been involved working with the military services for many years. In 2014, Halteman was awarded the US Special Operation Command Outstanding Civilian Service Medal. The letter to the members of Congress, as delivered, reads as follows: Dear Representatives Boehner and Pelosi and Senators McConnell and Reid: As you know, on July 14, 2015, the United States and five other nations announced that a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) has been reached with Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons. In our judgment as former senior military officers, the agreement will not have that effect. Removing sanctions on Iran and releasing billions of dollars to its regime over the next ten years is inimical to the security of Israel and the Middle East. There is no credibility within JCPOA’s inspection process or the ability to snap back sanctions once lifted, should Iran violate the agreement. In this and other respects, the JCPOA would threaten the national security and vital interests of the United States and, therefore, should be disapproved by the Congress. The agreement as constructed does not “cut off every pathway” for Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. To the contrary, it actually provides Iran with a legitimate path to doing that simply by abiding by the deal. JCPOA allows all the infrastructure the Iranians need for a nuclear bomb to be preserved and enhanced.Notably, Iran is allowed to: continue to enrich uranium; develop and test advanced centrifuges; and continue work on its Arak heavy-water plutonium reactor. Collectively, these concessions afford the Iranians, at worst, a ready breakout option and, at best, an incipient nuclear weapons capability a decade from now. The agreement is unverifiable. Under the terms of the JCPOA and a secret side deal (to which the United States is not privy), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will be responsible for inspections under such severe limitations as to prevent them from reliably detecting Iranian cheating. For example, if Iran and the inspectors are unable to reach an accommodation with respect to a given site, the result could be at least a 24-day delay in IAEA access.The agreement also requires inspectors to inform Iran in writing as to the basis for its concerns about an undeclared site, thus further delaying access. Most importantly, these inspections do not allow access to Iranian military facilities, the most likely location of their nuclear weapons development efforts. In the JCPOA process, there is substantial risk of U.S. intelligence being compromised, since the IAEA often relies on our sensitive data with respect to suspicious and/or prohibited activity. While failing to assure prevention of Iran’s nuclear weapons development capabilities, the agreement provides by some estimates $150 billion dollars or more to Iran in the form of sanctions relief. As military officers, we find it unconscionable that such a windfall could be given to a regime that even the Obama administration has acknowledged will use a portion of such funds to continue to support terrorism in Israel, throughout the Middle East and globally, whether directly or through proxies. These actions will be made all the more deadly since the JCPOA will lift international embargoes on Iran’s access to advanced conventional weapons and ballistic missile technology. In summary, this agreement will enable Iran to become far more dangerous, render the Mideast still more unstable and introduce new threats to American interests as well as our allies. In our professional opinion, far from being an alternative to war, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action makes it likely that the war the Iranian regime has waged against us since 1979 will continue, with far higher risks to our national security interests. Accordingly, we urge the Congress to reject this defective accord.(emphasis added.) 1.Admiral David Architzel, US Navy, Retired 2.Admiral Stanley R. Arthur, US Navy, Retired 3.General William Begert, US Air Force,Retired 4.GeneralJ.B. Davis, US Air Force, Retired 5.AdmiralWilliam A. Doughert, US Navy, Retired 6.Admiral Leon A. “Bud” Edney, US Navy, Retired 7.General Alfred G. Hansen US Air Force, Retired 8.Admiral Thomas Hayward, US Navy, Retired 9.Admiral James Hogg, US Navy, Retired 10.Admiral Jerome Johnson, US Navy, Retired 11.Admiral Timothy J. Keating, US Navy, Retired 12.Admiral Robert J. Kelly, US Navy, Retired 13.Admiral Thomas Joseph Lopez, US Navy, Retired 14.Admiral James A. “Ace” Lyons, US Navy, Retired 15.Admiral Richard Macke, US Navy, Retired 16.Admiral Henry Mauz, US Navy, Retired 17.General Lance Smith, US Air Force, Retired 18.Admiral Leighton Smith, US Navy, Retired 19.Admiral William D. Smith, US Navy, Retired 20.General Louis C. Wagner, Jr., US Army, Retired 21.Admiral Steve White, US Navy, Retired 22.General Ronald W. Yates, US Air Force, Retired 23.Lieutenant General Teddy G. Allen, US Army, Retired 24.Lieutenant General Edward G. Anderson, III, USArmy, Retired 25.Lieutenant General Marcus A. Anderson, US Air Force, Retired 26.Lieutenant General Spence M. Armstrong, US Air Force, Retired 27.Lieutenant General Harold W. Blot, US Marine Corps, Retired 28.Vice Admiral Michael Bowman, US Navy, Retired 29.Lieutenant General William G. “Jerry” Boykin, US Army, Retired 30.Vice Admiral Edward S. Briggs, US Navy, Retired 31.Lieutenant General Richard E. “Tex” Brown III, US Air Force, Retired 32.Lieutenant General William J. Campbell, US Air Force, Retired 33.Vice Admiral Edward Clexton, US Navy, Retired 34.Vice Admiral Daniel L. Cooper, US Navy, Retired 35.Vice Admiral William A. Dougherty, US Navy, Retired 36.Lieutenant General Brett Dula, US Air Force, Retired 37.Lieutenant General Gordon E. Fornell, US Air Force, Retired 38.Lieutenant General Thomas B. Goslin, US Air Force, Retired 39.LieutenantGeneral Earl Hailston, US Marine Corps, Retired 40.Vice Admiral Bernard M. Kauderer, US Navy, Retired 41.Lieutenant General Timothy A. Kinnan, US Air Force, Retired 42.Vice Admiral J. B . LaPlante, US Navy, Retired 43.Vice Admiral Tony Less, US Navy, Retired 44.Lieutenant General Bennett L. Lewis, US Army, Retired 45.Vice Admiral Michael Malone, US Navy, Retired 46.Vice Admiral John Mazach, US Navy, Retired 47.Lieutenant GeneralThomas McInerney, US Air Force, Retired 48.Lieutenant General Fred McCorkle, US Marine Corps, Retired 49.Vice Admiral Robert Monroe, US Navy, Retired 50.Vice Admiral Jimmy Pappas, US Navy, Retired 51.Vice Admiral J. Theodore Parker, US Navy, Retired 52.Lieutenant General Garry L. Parks, US Marine Corps, Retired 53.Lieutenant General Everett Pratt, US Air Force, Retired 54.Vice Admiral John Poindexter, US Navy, Retired 55.Lieutenant General Clifford “Ted” Rees, Jr., US Air Force, Retired 56.Vice Admiral William Rowden, US Navy, Retired 57.Vice Admiral Robert F. Schoultz, US Navy, Retired 58.Lieutenant General E.G. “Buck” Shuler, Jr., US Air Force, Retired 59.Lieutenant General Hubert ‘Hugh” G. Smith, US Army, Retired 60.Vice Admiral Edward M. Straw, US Navy, Retired 61.Lieutenant General David J. Teal, US Air Force, Retired 62.Vice Admiral D.C. “Deese” Thompson, US Coast Guard, Retired 63.Lieutenant General William E. Thurman, US Air Force, Retired 64.Lieutenant General Billy Tomas, US Army, Retired 65.Vice AdmiralJohn Totushek, US Navy, Retired 66.Vice Admiral Jerry Tuttle, US Navy, Retired 67.Vice Admiral Jerry Unruh, US Navy, Retired 68.Vice Admiral Timothy W. Wright, US Navy, Retired 69.Rear Admiral William V. Alford, Jr., US Navy, Retired 70.Major General Thurman E. Anderson, US Army, Retired 71.Major General Joseph T. Anderson, US Marine Corps, Retired 72.Rear Admiral Philip Anselmo, US Navy, Retired 73.Major General Joe Arbuckle, US Army, Retired 74.Rear Admiral James W. Austin, USNavy, Retired 75.Rear Admiral John R. Batzler, US Navy, Retired 76.Rear Admiral John Bayless, US Navy, Retired 77.Major General John Bianchi, US Army, Retired 78.Rear Admiral Donald Vaux Boecker, US Navy, Retired 79.Rear Admiral Jerry C. Breast, US Navy, Retired 80.Rear Admiral Bruce B. Bremner, US Navy, Retired 81.Major General Edward M. Browne, US Army, Retired 82.Rear Admiral Thomas F. Brown III, US Navy, Retired 83.Rear Admiral Lyle Bull, US Navy, Retired 84.Major General Bobby G. Butcher, US Marine Corps, Retired 85.Rear Admiral Jay A. Campbell, US Navy, Retired 86.Major General Henry D. Canterbury, US Air Force, Retired 87.Major General Carroll D. Childers, US Army, Retired 88.Rear Admiral Ronald L. Christenson, US Navy, Retired 89.Major General John R.D. Cleland, US Army, Retired 90.Major General Richard L. Comer, US Air Force, Retired 91.Rear Admiral Jack Dantone, US Navy, Retired 92.Major General William B. Davitte, US Air Force, Retired 93.Major General James D. Delk, US Army, Retired 94.Major General Felix Dupre, US Air Force, Retired 95.Rear Admiral Philip A. Dur, US Navy, Retired 96.Major General Neil L. Eddins, US Air Force, Retired 97.Rear Admiral Paul Engel, US Navy, Retired 98.Major General Vince Falter, US Army, Retired 99.Rear Admiral James H. Flatley, US Navy, Retired 100.Major General Bobby O. Floyd, US Air Force, Retired 101.Major General Paul Fratarangelo, US Marine Corps, Retired 102.Rear Admiral Veronica “Ronne” Froman, US Navy, Retired 103.Rear Admiral R. Byron Fuller, US Navy, Retired 104.Rear Admiral Frank Gallo, US Navy, Retired 105.Rear Admiral Albert A. Gallotta, Jr., US Navy,Retired 106.Rear Admiral James Mac Gleim, US Navy, Retired 107.Rear Admiral Robert H. Gormley, US Navy, Retired 108.Rear Admiral William Gureck, US Navy, Retired 109.Major General Gary L. Harrell, US Army, Retired 110.Rear Admiral Donald Hickman, US Navy, Retired 111.Major General Geoffrey Higginbotham, US Marine Corps, Retired 112.Major General Kent H. Hillhouse, USArmy, Retired 113.Rear Admiral Tim Hinkle, US Navy, Retired 114.Major General Victor Joseph Hugo, US Army, Retired 115.Major General James P. Hunt, US Air Force, Retired 116.Rear Admiral Grady L. Jackson, US Navy, Retired 117.Major General William K. James, US Air Force, Retired 118.Rear Admiral John M. “Carlos” Johnson, US Navy, Retired 119.Rear Admiral Pierce J. Johnson, US Navy, Retired 120.Rear Admiral Steven B. Kantrowitz, US Navy, Retired 121.Major General Maurice W. Kendall, US Army, Retired 122.Rear Admiral Charles R. Kubic, US Navy, Retired 123.Rear Admiral Frederick L. Lewis, US Navy, Retired 124.Major General John D. Logeman, Jr., US Air Force, Retired 125.Major General Homer S. Long, Jr., US Army, Retired 126.Major General Robert M. Marquette, US Air Force, Retired 127.Rear Admiral Robert B. McClinton, US Navy, Retired 128.Rear Admiral W. J. McDaniel, MD, US Navy, Retired 129.Major General Keith W. Meurlin, US Air Force, Retired 130.Rear Admiral Terrence McKnight, US Navy, Retired 131.Major General John F. Miller, Jr., US Air Force, Retired 132.Major General Burton R. Moore, US Air Force, Retired 133.Rear Admiral David R. Morris, US Navy, Retired 134.Rear Admiral Ed Nelson, Jr., US Coast Guard, Retired 135.Major General George W. “Nordie” Norwood, US Air Force, Retired 136.Major General Everett G. Odgers, US Air Force, Retired 137.Rear Admiral Phillip R. Olson, US Navy, Retired 138.Rear Admiral Robert S. Owens, US Navy, Retired 139.Rear Admiral Robert O. Passmore, US Navy, Retired 140.Major General Richard E. Perraut, Jr., US Air Force, Retired 141.Rear Admiral W.W. Pickavance, Jr., US Navy, Retired 142.Rear Admiral L.F. Picotte, US Navy, Retired 143.Rear Admiral Thomas J. Porter, US Navy, Retired 144.Major General H. Douglas Robertson, US Army, Retired 145.Rear Admiral W.J. Ryan, US Navy, Retired 146.Rear Admiral Norman Saunders, US Coast Guard, Retired 147.Major General John P. Schoeppner, Jr., US Air Force, Retired 148.Major General Edison E. Scholes, US Army, Retired 149.Rear Admiral Hugh P. Scott, US Navy, Retired 150.Major General Richard Secord, US Air Force, Retired 151.Rear Admiral James M. Seely, US Navy, Retired 152.Major General Sidney Shachnow, US Army, Retired 153.Rear Admiral William H. Shawcross, US Navy, Retired 154.Rear Admiral Bob Shumaker, US Navy, Retired 155.Major General Willie Studer, US Air Force, Retired 156.Major General Larry Taylor, US Marine Corps, Retired 157.Rear Admiral Jeremy Taylor, US Navy, Retired 158.Major General Richard L. Testa, US Air Force, Retired 159.Rear Admiral Robert P. Tiernan, US Navy, Retired 160.Major General Paul E. Vallely, US Army, Retired 161.Major General Kenneth W. Weir, US Marine Corps, Retired 162.Major General John Welde, US Air Force, Retired 163.Rear Admiral James B. Whittaker, US Navy, Retired 164.Major General Geoffrey P. Wiedeman, Jr., MD, US Air Force, Retired 165.Rear Admiral H. Denny Wisely, US Navy, Retired 166.Brigadier General John R. Allen, Jr., US Air Force, Retired 167.Brigadier General John C. Arick, US Marine Corps, Retired 168.Brigadier General Loring R. Astorino, US Air Force, Retired 169.Rear Admiral Robert E. Besal, US Navy, Retired 170.Brigadier General William Bloomer, US Marine Corps, Retired 171.Brigadier General George P. Cole, Jr., US Air Force, Retired 172.Brigadier General Richard A. Coleman, US Air Force, Retired 173.Brigadier General James L. Crouch, US Air Force, Retired 174.Rear Admiral Marianne B. Drew, US Navy, Retired 175.Brigadier General Philip M. Drew, US Air Force, Retired 176.Brigadier General Larry K. Grundhauser, US Air Force, Retired 177.Brigadier General Thomas W. Honeywill, US Air Force, Retired 178.Brigadier General Gary M. Jones, US Army, Retired 179.Brigadier General Stephen Lanning, US Air Force, Retired 180.Brigadier General Thomas J. Lennon, US Air Force, Retired 181.Rear Admiral Bobby C. Lee, US Navy, Retired 182.Brigadier General Robert F. Peksens, US Air Force, Retired 183.Brigadier General Joe Shaefer, US Air Force, Retired 184.Brigadier General Graham E. Shirley, US Air Force, Retired 185.Brigadier General Stanley O. Smith, US Air Force, Retired 186.Brigadier General Hugh B. Tant III, US Army, Retired 187.Brigadier General Michael Joseph Tashjian, US Air Force, Retired 188.Brigadier General William Tiernan, US Marine Corps, Retired 189.Brigadier General Roger W. Scearce, US Army, Retired 190.Brigadier General Robert V. Woods, US Air Force, Retired About the Author: Lori Lowenthal Marcus is the US correspondent for The Jewish Press. She is a recovered lawyer who previously practiced First Amendment law and taught in Philadelphia-area graduate and law schools. You can reach her by email: [email protected] |
We Assess…Iran Probably Already Has Nuclear Weapons
By Dr. Peter Pry September 25, 2019Some in Washington want to bomb Iran for attacking Saudi Arabia’s oil fields. But what if Iran has nuclear missiles? Intelligence failure can kill thousands, as Washington learned on December 7, 1941, and should have learned again on September 11, 2001. Intelligence failure in the nuclear missile age can destroy entire nations. Washington officialdom believes Iran does not yet have nuclear weapons based on little more than wishful thinking and blind faith in an Intelligence Community deeply corrupted by the Obama Administration—and still unreformed by President Trump. Three years ago, senior Reagan and Clinton administration officials warned that Iran probably already has nuclear weapons. See “Underestimating Nuclear Missile Threats from North Korea and Iran” National Review February 12, 2016: “Iran is following North Korea’s example — as a strategic partner allied by treaty and pledged to share scientific and military technology. Iran sacrificed its overt civilian nuclear program to deceive the Obama administration, to lift international sanctions, to prevent Western military action, while a clandestine military nuclear program no doubt continues underground. That is why Iran, under the nuclear deal, will not allow inspection of its military facilities and prohibits interviewing scientists — it is concealing the dimensions and status of Iran’s nuclear-weapons program.” “We assess, from U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency reports and other sources, that Iran probably already has nuclear weapons. Over 13 years ago, prior to 2003, Iran was manufacturing nuclear-weapon components, like bridge-wire detonators and neutron initiators, performing non-fissile explosive experiments of an implosion nuclear device, and working on the design of a nuclear warhead for the Shahab-III missile.” “Thirteen years ago Iran was already a threshold nuclear-missile state. It is implausible that Iran suspended its program for over a decade for a nuclear deal with President Obama.” The above assessment is by Ambassador R. James Woolsey, President Clinton’s Director of Central Intelligence; Dr. William Graham, President Reagan’s White House Science Advisor, leader of NASA, and recently Chairman of the Congressional EMP Commission; Fritz Ermarth, a national security advisor to President Reagan and Chairman of the National Intelligence Council; and Ambassador Henry Cooper, former Director of the Strategic Defense Initiative. These stellar intelligence officers, strategic thinkers, and scientists played major roles helping win the Cold War. Perhaps we should listen to them now about Iran: “Iran probably has nuclear warheads for the Shahab-III medium-range missile, which they tested for making EMP attacks…Iran already has the largest medium-range ballistic-missile force in the Middle East.” “Iran could be building a nuclear-capable missile force, partly hidden in tunnels, as suggested by its dramatic revelation of a vast underground missile-basing system last year. Iran is building toward a large, deployable, survivable, war-fighting missile force — to which nuclear weapons can be swiftly added as they are manufactured.” “And at a time of its choosing, Iran could launch a surprise EMP attack against the United States by satellite, as they have apparently practiced with help from North Korea.” More recently, David Albright, former nuclear inspector for the UN International Atomic Energy Agency, and Ollie Heinonen, former Deputy Director General of IAEA, published an Institute for Science and International Security report based on Iran’s secret nuclear weapon archives clandestinely obtained by Israel’s Mossad: “The archive shows that the AMAD program intended to build five nuclear warhead systems for missile delivery and possible use in preparation for an underground nuclear test; an actual test would require a decision to proceed. The program was also partially designed to have its own independent uranium mining, conversion, and enrichment resources. The documentation indicates that Iran’s nuclear weaponization efforts did not stop after 2003…” “The United States incorrectly assessed with high confidence in a 2007 declassified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that ‘in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program.’ Based on the information in the archives, Iran’s nuclear weapons program continued after 2003…Moreover, the 2007 NIE also incorrectly asserted that Iran had not re-started its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007…However, there is no evidence that the program was ever fully halted, even up to today.” “The information in the archive evaluated so far does not answer the question of what the current status of Iran’s nuclear weapons program is…” Assessments that Iran does not yet have nuclear weapons assume erroneously: our intelligence is perfect, Iran’s civilian nuclear program is all there is, no clandestine nuclear weapons program exists in Iran’s numerous underground military facilities—including unaccounted uranium and plutonium facilities for fueling nuclear weapons, as in North Korea. Where Iran is concerned, our Intelligence Community appears to have learned nothing from its spectacular failures grossly underestimating the nuclear threat from North Korea. Does the Intelligence Community even want to know the truth about Iran’s Islamic bomb? Reza Kahlili, the only CIA operative to successfully penetrate the scientific wing of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, claimed Iran does have nuclear weapons and offered to procure photographs. Obama’s Intelligence Community was not interested, and is still not interested. President Trump has inherited an Intelligence Community that disagrees with him about almost everything, including his decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal. According to the Intelligence Community, Iran is in technical compliance with the nuclear deal, officially the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action (JCPOA). But if Iran already has nuclear weapons, Iran was never in compliance with JCPOA, and the Intelligence Community can chalk-up another major intelligence failure, potentially far more consequential than Pearl Harbor or 9/11. If Iran has the bomb, why have they not yet attacked “the Great Satan” that is the United States? Radical Islamist cleric Nasir al-Fahd’s May 2003 fatwa “A Treatise On The Legal Status Of Using Weapons Of Mass Destruction Against Infidels” may provide a clue. Although al-Fahd is a Sunni sympathetic to al Qaeda, his rules for a nuclear holocaust against Infidels may well govern the thinking of the Shiite mullahs who run Iran too: –First, under Islam’s “Just War Doctrine” the Infidels have to be given an opportunity to convert to Islam, before they can be destroyed. This Iran’s leaders have done repeatedly, most prominently former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaking at Columbia University (September 24, 2007) and at least twice at the United Nations (September 23, 2009 and September 26, 2012) about “the current world order based on injustice” and the virtues of the Islamic Republic of Iran. –Next, a “final solution” against Infidels cannot be implemented except in a defensive war to protect the Ummah, the community or territory of Islam. So a U.S. bombing campaign, especially one that threatens regime change in Iran, would justify nuclear annihilation of “the Great Satan”. Is it possible Iran is deliberately trying to provoke the U.S. to attack, so the Mullahs can in “self-defense” come out of the nuclear closet by blasting a U.S. aircraft carrier, or making an EMP attack on North America? By the way, “political correctness” under the Obama and Bush administrations, unfortunately continuing today, forbids the Intelligence Community from analyzing the ideology of radical Islam (the so-called “religion of peace”) for purposes of strategic warning or waging the Global War on Terrorism. Consequently, the best and brightest counterterrorism and Islamist experts were purged from the Intelligence Community. We should be treating Iran like a nuclear weapons state, with the same prudent caution used toward North Korea. Let’s not learn the hard way that Iran already has its Islamic Bomb. Appended to this article is a more comprehensive assessment of evidence Iran already has nuclear weapons that I wrote in 2016, drawing upon my training as a CIA Intelligence Officer and professional lifetime as a national security scholar. Whether from bias or wishful thinking, compelling evidence Iran already has nuclear weapons, and warnings by prominent intelligence and national security experts from the U.S. and Israel, is largely ignored, as if this legitimate opinion is under a news blackout. __________________________ 
Top Chinese telecom executive arrested in Canada for fraud and violation of Iran sanctions
DECEMBER 8, 2018 BY BEN MARQUIS The U.S. government has long suspected that Chinese telecom equipment giant Huawei had links to the Chinese military and/or communist party, and that the corporation had secretly violated U.S. economic sanctions against Iran, for which the company needed to be held accountable. Thus, when Huawei’s Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou was changing flights at an airport in Vancouver, Canada, on Dec. 1, law enforcement pounced and placed her under arrest on accusations of fraud. The New York Times reported that Canadian law enforcement officials made the arrest at the request of the U.S. government, which is seeking to extradite the Chinese official to America for prosecution. This despite the fact that the arrest threw a wrench into President Donald Trump’s efforts at trade negotiations with China, not to mention causing turmoil in the international markets. Top executive at HuaweiThe 46-year-old Meng is the daughter of Huawei founder and leader Ren Zhengfei, a former Chinese military engineer who started the company to produce telephone switches in 1987 and eventually grew to become the world’s second-largest manufacturer of telecom equipment. Interestingly, “Huawei” translates to “China’s Achievement.” Meng started off as a secretary at her father’s company in 1993, eventually earned a masters degree in management and transferred to the finance department of the business, and then worked her way up to be the chief finance officer. She now also serves as the public face of the corporation to the business world. As part of her greater responsibilities, Meng sat on the board of a Hong Kong-based affiliate known as Skycom Tech. Skycom Tech is accused of having violated international sanctions to conduct business in Iran. Meng is also accused of being personally involved in deceiving financial institutions into conducting transactions that were in violation of the sanctions against Iran. Fraud and violation of economic sanctionsAt a bail hearing in a Canadian court on Friday, Canadian authorities accused Meng of fraud and said she had “direct involvement” in convincing financial institutions that Huawei and Skycom were in strict compliance with the sanctions against Iran, even though they were not. Huawei has denied that any wrongdoing occurred, maintaining that all business conducted in Iran was lawful and demanding that Meng be immediately released from custody. But the U.S. has been investigating Meng and Huawei’s business dealings in Iran for several years, and White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said Huawei has been repeatedly warned against violating the sanctions. In an appearance on CNBC on Friday, Kudlow said, “We have these sanctions on Iran, it runs against our policy, why shouldn’t we enforce that?” It remains to be seen if Meng will be ultimately prosecuted for fraud or released by Canadian officials, or if she is extradited to the U.S. to be held accountable for violating the Iran sanctions. It further remains to be seen how this arrest and potential prosecution will impact the financial markets — hint: the markets don’t like the uncertainty — and U.S-Chinese relations, particularly with regard to trade imbalance and technology issues. ___________________________ 
Sarah Sanders Torches Obama’s Iran Policy — And She Uses Hillary Clinton To Do It
BENNY JOHNSON Reporter At Large 3:27 PM 01/02/2018 Sarah Sanders took the White House podium for the first time in 2018 on Tuesday and there was plenty of news to talk about. First on the list: the protests in Iran. In her remarks, Sanders wasted no time criticizing the Iranian regime. When asked what is President Trump’s “end game” in Iran, Sanders said she thinks “the people of Iran are actually given basic human rights, and [Trump] would certainly like to see them stop being a state sponsor of terror.” She added, “I think that’s what the whole world would like to see.” The White House press secretary was then asked if Trump’s support of the protesters may cause a “backlash against them by the Iranian government.” Secretary Sanders took a direct shot at the legacy of President Obama in her response, saying: “No, I think one of the big things that even Hillary Clinton outlined in this when she said that the Obama Administration was to restrained in the 2009 protest and said that that won’t happen again. For once, she is right and we agree with her because President Trump is not going to sit by silently like President Obama did. He certainly supports the Iranian people and wants to make that clear.” Sanders was referring to the Green Revolution of 2009, where thousands of protesters in Iran took to the streets to contest the reelection of president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The protesters reached out to the Obama State Department for support but were met with silence. The Green Revolution was ultimately put down viciously with many deaths and arrests. President Trump tweeted Tuesday morning, “All of the money that President Obama so foolishly gave them went into terrorism and into their “pockets.” The people have little food, big inflation and no human rights. The U.S. is watching!” ___________________________ 
NUCLEAR SHOWDOWN WITH NORTH KOREA: How did we get to the point that Pyongyang may have 60 warheads? Disastrous deals cut by Presidents Clinton and Obama. Here are the facts.
August 12, 2017 By joelcrosenberg in Epicenter While a preemptive North Korean nuclear attack on the U.S. and/or America’s Pacific allies sounds like a plot ripped from my 2008 novel, Dead Heat, it may no longer be a fictional scenario. U.S. intelligence agencies are now convinced that “North Korea has successfully produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead that can fit inside its missiles, crossing a key threshold on the path to becoming a full-fledged nuclear power,” reports the Washington Post, based on a confidential analysis by the Defense Intelligence Agency. “The United States calculated last month that up to 60 nuclear weapons are now controlled by North Korean leader Kim Jong In,” notes the Post. This week, Pyongyang threatened to attack the island of Guam with ballistic missiles that could be armed with nuclear weapons. With 160,000 residents and two U.S. military bases, the Pacific island territory now appears to be in Pyongyang’s crosshairs. President Trump immediately warned the leaders of North Korea not to dare even consider attacks against the American people or their allies, saying they would experience American “fire and fury like the world has never seen.” “Military solutions are now fully in place, locked and loaded, should North Korea act unwisely,” the President added. “Hopefully Kim Jong Un will find another path.” We need to pray for peace, and for our leaders to have wisdom to know how best to contain the North Korean threat and ratchet down tensions. We need to pray that countries like China will use their considerable leverage to persuade the North Koreans to back down. As a protective measure, the U.S. needs to be urgently bolstering its naval and air assets in the Pacific theater, as well as its missile defense assets, closely coordinating both defensive and offensive capabilities with allies like South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, and Taiwan, among others. At the same time, we need to reexamine the disastrous nuclear deals both President Clinton and President Obama made with North Korea. Both men promised the American people that their diplomacy would make us all safer by persuading Pyongyang not to pursue nuclear weapons or the long-range ballistic missiles to deliver them. Both could not have been more wrong. Such serious misjudments have helped get us to this exceedingly dangerous moment. In October of 1994, President Bill Clinton cut a deal with North Korea in which Pyongyang agreed to “freeze and gradually dismantle its nuclear weapons development program,” reported the New York Times. “This agreement will help achieve a longstanding and vital American objective — an end to the threat of nuclear proliferation on the Korean Peninsula,” Mr. Clinton told the American people. “This agreement is good for the United States, good for our allies, and good for the safety of the entire world,” Mr. Clinton added. “It’s a crucial step toward drawing North Korea into the global community.” In return, the Clinton administration gave North Korea $4 billion in energy aid. In addition, the Clinton deal gave North Korea two nuclear power plants, for which American taxpayers helped foot the bill. “This is a good deal for the United States,” Mr. Clinton said at the time. “North Korea will freeze and then dismantle its nuclear program. South Korea and our other allies will be better protected. The entire world will be safer as we slow the spread of nuclear weapons.” But Mr. Clinton and his senior advisors couldn’t have been more wrong. In February of 2012, President Obama was similarly duped. Mr. Obama agreed to a deal in which Pyongyang promised (again) not to build nuclear weapons and stop testing long-range ballistic missiles. In return, the Obama administration agreed to give North Korea 240,000 metric tons of food. Experts warned the Obama team at the time that “it is naïve at best for the administration to herald a North Korean ‘commitment to denuclearization’ after the many years of North Korean actions definitively proving the contrary.” Less than a month later, Pyongyang tested another long-range rocket in clear violation of the agreement, and a humiliated Mr. Obama had to suspend the food aid program. Clearly, the policy of “strategic patience” (read: “do nothing and hope for the best”) run by Mr. Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been a colossal failure. If all this weren’t bad enough, it’s made worse by the fact that the insane Obama nuclear deal with Iran was essentially patterned — and sold — after the Clinton deal with North Korea. As I warned in this Fox News interview and elsewhere (see here and here), the ayatollahs in Tehran are working closely with Pyongyang on nuclear and missile technology. They’re also watching how the U.S. and the world powers handle a nation aspiring to become a nuclear armed power. So far, they’re learning the West can be played for fools, and a small but aggressive nation can build a nuclear arsenal without much fear of being stopped. ___________________________ 
Iran could have an operational nuke by 2017 end
DEBKAfile Special Expose August 6, 2016, 11:34 AM (IDT) The nuclear accord signed a year ago with Iran has become a hot US presidential campaign issue. On Thursday, Aug. 4, US President Barack Obama speaking at the Pentagon said the agreement “has worked exactly the way we said it would,” and even “Israeli defense officials are behind [it]… and now recognize the efficacy of the accord” and that the Iranians “no longer have the short term breakout capacity that would allow them to develop nuclear weapons.” Hillary Clinton declared at the Democratic Party convention which gave her the presidential nomination: “We put a lid on Iran’s nuclear program without firing a single shot.” Both these claims may be called hyperbolic at best and drew a response from Tel Aviv: “The Israeli defense establishment believes that agreements have value only if they are based on reality. They have no value if the facts on the ground are opposite to the ones the agreement is based on.” Documents reaching DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources in recent weeks bare some facts contained in unpublished sections of the nuclear accord – Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPA) - that Iran signed in Vienna with the US, China, France, Russia, retain and Germany on July 14 2015. This data is at odds with the official version that accord delayed Iran’s short-term breakout capacity to a nuclear bomb by ten years plus one year. It is now demonstrated that if Tehran decides to violate the accord Iran retains the capability to achieve this goal in months - not years. The strongest confirmation of this fact comes from the horse’s mouth: Ali Akbar Salehi, President of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, has said the nuclear deal stipulates that if any party violates it, then Iran can go back to enriching uranium at Natanz within 45 days at an even higher capacity than before the agreement was signed - – his deputy cited twenty-fold. Their words followed supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s repeated allegations that the US is in violation of the JCPA. US administration officials’ insistence that Iran will need a whole year to attain breakout capacity of its nuclear weapons program at the end of the 10-year moratorium is nullified by three covert Iranian steps: 1. Iran has concealed from International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors entire clusters of second-generation IR-2m centrifuges – some by upgrading IR machines at home and some imported from Pakistan and Germany. These hidden machines can substantially cut short the process of enriching uranium at the Natanz and Fordo plants up to weapons-grade. 2. Before signing the nuclear accord, Tehran stock-piled in Natanz alone 15,420 centrifuges – 9,156 of the first-generation IR-1 version and 1,000 high-speed IR-2m enrichment machines. On the date of signing, the inspectors were shown 5,060 IR-1 centrifuges – all dismantled and stowed away in storage along with the relevant feed equipment such as pipes, cooling systems and electronics. That Iran is now in a position to reassemble its enrichment facilities within 45 days was admitted by Salehi himself. 3. The American calculation of the time Iran would need to build a nuclear bomb was based on the quantity of low-grade enriched uranium (LEU) left with Iran for further refinement to weapon-grade level. Washington was satisfied that Tehran abided by the 300 kilograms limit set by the accord. However, Iran has since been revealed as cheating on that provision too by transferring a much larger LEU stock to Oman and continuing to clandestinely turn out further quantities disguised as materials required for “research.” All this information adds up to Iran’s current ability to flout the JCPA at any time, having retained all its capabilities and means of production for breaking out to developing a nuclear weapon within months, up to the end of 2017 – rather than years. After marking strides in their missile program, the Iranians would also soon be able to mount a nuke on an intercontinental ballistic missile, which could wipe out a European or Middle East city. __________________________  PHOTO: OFFICE OF THE IRANIAN SUPREME LEADER/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Why the Ayatollah Thinks He Won
The U.S. hoped that the nuclear deal would boost Iran’s moderates, but after more than a year, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his allies seem to be the big winners By JAY SOLOMON Aug. 19, 2016 1:32 p.m. ET Since the completion last year of a landmark deal limiting Iran’s nuclear program, the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has lashed out again and again at the U.S. for its supposed failure to live up to its end of the bargain. But a speech he gave on Aug. 1 in Tehran took his anti-American rhetoric to a new level. He accused the Obama administration of a “bullying policy” and of failing to lift sanctions in a way that benefited “the life of the people.” Mr. Khamenei ruled out cooperation with the U.S. in the fight against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, telling his audience that Iran’s experience with the nuclear deal “showed us that we cannot speak to [the Americans] on any matter like a trustworthy party.” Many in the crowd chanted anti-U.S. slogans. Is Iran preparing to walk away from the accord? It’s unlikely. Mr. Khamenei’s speech was classical political posturing intended to rally his hard-line followers. But more than that, his bluster conceals a deeper strategic calculus. For all his complaints about American treachery, Mr. Khamenei and his allies recognize that the nuclear deal has produced significant benefits for their hobbled theocracy and may serve to further entrench the regime brought to power in the 1979 revolution. President Barack Obama defined the nuclear deal primarily as an arms-control exercise, designed to constrain Tehran’s nuclear program for at least a decade and to keep the U.S. from becoming embroiled in yet another Middle East war. But the White House and its top diplomats, including Secretary of State John Kerry, also quietly suggested that the agreement might open the door to a broader rapprochement between Tehran and Washington and empower Iran’s moderate political forces, particularly its elected president, Hassan Rouhani. U.S. officials have always cautioned that it would take time for the salutary effects of engagement with Iran to take effect. They have even conceded that, in the short term, the agreement might energize hard-liners opposed to engagement with the West—and that, indeed, seems to be what is happening. Since the accord was announced last summer, Mr. Khamenei and his elite military unit, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, have moved to solidify their hold. As international sanctions against Iran have slackened, the ayatollah and his core allies have expanded the Iranian military and pursued new business opportunities for the companies and foundations that finance the regime’s key ideological cadres. Iran has continued to fund and arm its major regional allies, including the Assad regime in Syria, the Lebanese militia Hezbollah and Houthi rebels in Yemen—all of which are at war with America’s regional partners—and the regime has continued to test and develop ballistic missiles. The government has also stepped up arrests of opposition leaders and political activists. Mr. Khamenei has been deeply involved from the start with his country’s talks with the U.S. After the U.N. Security Council imposed tough sanctions on Iran in 2010, he became alarmed by the drain on Tehran’s finances. In 2012, he backed secret talks in hopes of relieving the crippling financial pressure. A collapse in global oil prices made Iran even more vulnerable. As the talks evolved into public negotiations with the U.S. and its partners, Mr. Khamenei instructed his representatives to ensure that Iran could keep the major infrastructure of its nuclear and military programs. Today, the 77-year-old ayatollah—who reportedly suffers from cancer—is seeking to cement his legacy and to shape the political transition that will occur once he is gone. The nuclear agreement provides him with the building blocks to do that, and for now, at least, Mr. Khamenei and his allies look to be the deal’s big winners. The next U.S. administration is likely to face an unhappy choice: to continue to work with Iran or to challenge an increasingly entrenched supreme leader and his Revolutionary Guard. For its part, the Obama administration says that the nuclear deal blocks Iran from all paths to develop an atomic bomb and that the agreement’s success doesn’t depend on political change taking root in Tehran. They note that the deal is still in its early stages and suggest that an opening of Iran’s economy could help reformists over time. They also insist that it has served the cause of peace in the region. “The president and I both had a sense that we were on an automatic pilot toward a potential conflict, because no one wanted to talk to anybody or find out what was possible,” Mr. Kerry said in an interview. “I have no doubt that we avoided a war. None.” To understand Mr. Khamenei’s perspective on the negotiations and the resulting deal, the best place to start is Iran’s nuclear program. The agreement requires Iran to accept key limitations: Previously, the country had nearly 20,000 centrifuge machines producing nuclear fuel and was on the cusp of possessing weapons-grade uranium. A plutonium-producing reactor was also nearly online. Today, only 5,000 centrifuges are spinning, the plutonium-making reactor has been made inoperable, and most of Iran’s enriched uranium has been shipped out of the country. Iran also agreed to grant greater access to its nuclear sites to inspectors from the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, to prevent the country from diverting fissile materials to banned military purposes. “There are serious constraints on their nuclear program for 15 years,” Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, an important player in the negotiations, said earlier this year. “Fifteen years, with serious verification measures, should give considerably more comfort to our allies in the region.” Mr. Khamenei, however, doesn’t appear to share this view of the deal’s constraints. Just as Iran’s negotiators were agreeing to these terms in July 2014, the supreme leader delivered a speech about the nuclear program—without consulting his chief negotiator, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, according to U.S. and European officials. In the address, Mr. Khamenei said that his oil-rich country needed at least 100,000 centrifuges to power its civilian nuclear program in the coming decades. This was more than 20 times what the Obama administration envisaged. Western diplomats wondered whether Iran’s diplomats really spoke for the supreme leader. Over the next year, the U.S. and its partners brought the Iranians back down to a capacity of just 5,000 machines. Washington hailed this as a major negotiating victory, but there was a twist: After a decade, the international community would go along with Mr. Khamenei’s vision of an Iran that could develop an industrial-scale, civilian nuclear program without checks on the number or capacity of the centrifuges spinning. The U.S. had won only a short-term pause in the expansion of the Iranian program, and the supreme leader had gained international approval for his longer-term plan. Indeed, in recent weeks, Iranian officials have talked of their preparations to build 10 new nuclear reactors with Russian help. This will require a steady supply of nuclear fuel from centrifuges that will be allowed to go online in a decade. “The agreement gives us time, provided Iran implements it. But it’s limited,” said Mark Hibbs, a Berlin-based expert on nuclear programs at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “The Revolutionary Guard controls the program, and there’s a risk that in 10 or 15 years, they might decide to restart their [weaponization] activities.” Mr. Khamenei also came away from the talks with much of what he wanted for reviving Iran’s economy—a longstanding anxiety for the regime. Before the nuclear deal, Iran had been on the financial ropes, especially after the Obama administration ratcheted up international sanctions. The deal relieved that pressure. The U.S.-led international sanctions campaign against Iran raised alarm bells in the supreme leader’s office in 2013, according to Iranian officials. In just over a year, Iran’s oil exports had been cut by more than half, and its banks were almost completely shut off from the international financial system. Iran’s currency, the rial, fell by two-thirds against the dollar, spurring massive inflation and unemployment. This gave the U.S. an opportunity to extract new concessions from Tehran. The more moderate Mr. Rouhani was elected president that year with a mandate to improve Iran’s economy and ease the sanctions. His aides say that Mr. Rouhani convinced Mr. Khamenei that sanctions posed an existential threat to the government. Mr. Rouhani got many of the U.S.-imposed penalties lifted under last year’s nuclear agreement. The impact on Iran’s economy has been mixed so far, stoking charges from Iranian leaders that the U.S. hasn’t lived up to its commitments. Iran’s oil exports have largely returned to their pre-2012 levels, and the World Bank projects that Iran will see nearly 5% growth in its gross domestic product next year. But European and Asian banks remain skittish of financing projects in Iran, and the U.S. Treasury Department maintains its ban on dollar transactions with Iran. This path of modest growth has worked to Mr. Khamenei’s advantage, Iran analysts say. Far from hoping for a flood of foreign investment, the supreme leader has repeatedly warned his people that Western culture and business could undermine the revolution and its values. Mr. Khamenei says that Iran must remain economically self-sufficient and independent of the West, running a “resistance economy” fueled by domestic production and capacity. “With its calm appearance, and with the soft and glib tongue of its officials, America is damaging us from behind the scenes,” Mr. Khamenei said in his speech earlier this month. Mr. Khamenei is managing the economy the way that he wants it—with enough money to avoid a financial crisis but not so much that it might threaten his system. The supreme leader’s “system wants technology, and he wants access to imports,” said a political adviser to President Rouhani. “But his ‘resistance economy’ is a way to keep the West out of Iran.” In an apparent effort to ward off foreign influence, the Revolutionary Guard has stepped up arrests of dual nationals from the U.S., Europe and Canada over the past year. One of the detained Americans, Siamak Namazi, is an oil-industry executive who has written and spoken about the need for Iran to embrace economic and political reforms. Friends and family of Mr. Namazi say that his arrest was a warning to Iranian expatriates not to return home to pursue business dealings. Many Iranian-Americans have heeded the message. The economy is now dominated by the Revolutionary Guard, which controls many of Iran’s largest companies. As for conventional military capabilities, the deal didn’t do much to curtail Iran’s ambitions. The supreme leader demanded a provision weakening a U.N. Security Council resolution that prohibits Tehran’s ballistic-missile development—and got it. He wanted the U.N. embargo lifted on Iran’s ability to buy or export conventional arms—and got it, in five years. He wanted to retain Iran’s ability to export arms—and the deal does nothing to interfere with that. “Ayatollah Khamenei has emerged as the single most powerful man in the Middle East,” said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert and senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. “It will take years to assess the full impact of the nuclear deal on the Middle East and in Iran internally, but the hope that the deal would weaken Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guards so far hasn’t been borne out.” Finally, the nuclear deal also seems to have boosted Mr. Khamenei’s ability to influence the region. In the ornate former palaces and six-star hotels where the nuclear talks took place in Austria and Switzerland last year, U.S. and European officials talked optimistically about using the deal to stabilize a roiling Middle East. They hoped that Iran, the region’s great Shiite power, might play a constructive role in ending conflicts in Yemen, Iraq and, above all, Syria. It hasn’t worked out that way. Even as the talks continued, Mr. Khamenei and his generals were plotting a much broader military campaign in Syria in partnership with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to European, Arab and Iranian officials. Starting in January 2015, the supreme leader’s top aides began a series of visits to the Kremlin to chart out a plan to bolster the embattled regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The result was a highly coordinated operation in Syria that began just weeks after the nuclear deal was completed. Mr. Putin’s air force has pounded Syrian rebels, bombing not just Sunni jihadists associated with Islamic State or al Qaeda but also U.S.-backed fighters. At the same time, Mr. Khamenei’s Revolutionary Guard mobilized thousands of soldiers and Shiite militiamen to launch a ground offensive, with Iranian troops fighting alongside militants from Hezbollah and other Shiite militias. The joint Iranian-Russian operation drove back Syrian rebels who had been advancing on the Assad regime’s stronghold on the Mediterranean coast, according to Arab and U.S. officials, and allowed the minority regime to retake large swaths of territory. The Kremlin announced this week that it has started launching airstrikes in Syria from Iranian territory. Mr. Khamenei has sworn off any collaboration with the U.S. in the Middle East, even against shared regional enemies like Islamic State. Instead, he has continued Iran’s campaign to control the oil-rich Persian Gulf and weaken the influence of the U.S., Israel and its Sunni Arab allies across the region. U.S. military commanders say that they have seen no tapering off of Revolutionary Guard support for its allies in Yemen, Iraq or the Palestinian territories. Mr. Khamenei cannot know how the U.S. will respond to his uncompromising stance, especially with a new administration soon to take office. But he may figure that he wins either way. If the deal falls apart, he could call it proof that the Americans never could be trusted and figure that another round of biting U.N. sanctions will prove too difficult to assemble. If the deal survives, he will have his military continue to develop missiles and conventional arms to position Iran to become a latent nuclear weapons power in 10 years. Either way, it is Mr. Khamenei, not his more moderate rivals, who are acting as if they have been strengthened by the nuclear deal. “Our problems with American and the likes of America…on regional matters and on various other matters are not solved through negotiations,” Mr. Khamenei said in his Aug. 1 speech. “We ourselves should choose a path and then take it. You should make the enemy…run after you.” Mr. Solomon is chief foreign affairs correspondent for the Journal. His new book, “The Iran Wars: Spy Games, Bank Battles, and the Secret Deals That Reshaped the Middle East,” will be published next week by Random House. __________________________ 
September 7, 2015
How You Can Help Stop the Iran Nuclear Deal Tomorrow By Jeff Lipkes If you have a Democrat Senator or live in the district of a Representative who supports the President, consider yourself lucky. You still have a chance to influence the debate on the deal. An overwhelming response from constituents may persuade a few Senate Democrats to switch sides and vote to override the President’s veto. Also, pressure from colleagues in the House who are feeling the heat as well (and who have to face an election in 15 months) may turn a Senator or two. Foreign policy is hardly on the radar of most constituents, and the gloating banner headlines about Barbara Mikulski’s announcement last week (surprise, surprise -- lead negotiator Wendy Sherman managed Barb’s first Senate campaign) are meant to deter opponents of the treaty. Should Senate Dems be inundated by phone calls and faxes, two or three just may rethink their position. Even one defection could cause a chain reaction. Don’t bother emailing. You’ll be lucky if you get an auto-reply thanking you. Don’t bother signing an on-line petition or a form letter that will be forwarded to D.C. -- for which the organization providing this service will beg you for a contribution. On Tuesday, take an early or late lunch, grab a sandwich, and call all the regional offices of your Senator and pro-deal Congressperson. Try the Washington office, but you’re not likely to get through. Identify yourself and ask the person who answers the phone if his or her boss has had a chance to read the open letter about the deal signed now by 245 senior military officers. The staffer will either say “yes” or that he or she doesn’t know. If you get the second response, tell the person you will fax the office a copy of the letter. Do this. If the receptionist says “yes,” ask what the Senator or Rep thinks of it. More than likely you’ll get a guarded reply: the letter will be taken into consideration. Tell the person you’d like her boss, or his, to give it another look and that you will be faxing a copy. Go ahead and do this. If the staffer wants to engage in a discussion about the letter, great. Reread it. It’s chilling and persuasive. Should the staff person mention another letter endorsing the treaty signed by officers -- including military chaplains -- remind him or her that as of now seven times as many generals and admirals have signed the letter in opposition to the agreement. They outrank as well as outnumber the agreement’s supporters. The pro-deal letter has an interesting caveat: JCPOA will be more effective than military action “assuming it is fully implemented.” Based on Iran’s performance over the past thirty years, there is no reason to assume this. “The deal requires verification” say the Obama loyalists blandly. Military leaders opposing the deal take the trouble to point out why verification will be so difficult. The 245-plus generals and admirals also remind Congress that While failing to assure prevention of Iran’s nuclear weapons development capabilities, the agreement provides by some estimates $150 billion dollars or more to Iran in the form of sanctions relief. As military officers, we find it unconscionable that such a windfall could be given to a regime that even the Obama administration has acknowledged will use a portion of such funds to continue to support terrorism in Israel, throughout the Middle East and globally, whether directly or through proxies. If you should have a chance to discuss the question with a staffer -- or anyone else -- it’s worth focusing for a moment on what “terrorism” means. Young people in excellent health, full of hopes and plans, will be blown up. Others will experience years of excruciating pain and multiple surgeries. The targets will include American servicemen abroad (like the Marines in Beirut in 1983) and Jews throughout the world (like those in the Buenos Aires Jewish Center building in 1994). It’s not likely you’ll get a chance to discuss the agreement. The point of the exercise is to keep the Senator or Congressperson’s phone and fax lines humming. Forward this request to friends, relatives you’re on speaking terms with, fellow church or synagogue members, and any others you think might take the time to phone and fax. This deal is potentially more likely to “fundamentally transform” America than even mass immigration. It’s worth taking a few minutes to try to kill it. The glass is still half-full. If you have a Democrat Senator or live in the district of a Representative who supports the President, consider yourself lucky. You still have a chance to influence the debate on the deal. An overwhelming response from constituents may persuade a few Senate Democrats to switch sides and vote to override the President’s veto. Also, pressure from colleagues in the House who are feeling the heat as well (and who have to face an election in 15 months) may turn a Senator or two. Foreign policy is hardly on the radar of most constituents, and the gloating banner headlines about Barbara Mikulski’s announcement last week (surprise, surprise -- lead negotiator Wendy Sherman managed Barb’s first Senate campaign) are meant to deter opponents of the treaty. Should Senate Dems be inundated by phone calls and faxes, two or three just may rethink their position. Even one defection could cause a chain reaction. Don’t bother emailing. You’ll be lucky if you get an auto-reply thanking you. Don’t bother signing an on-line petition or a form letter that will be forwarded to D.C. -- for which the organization providing this service will beg you for a contribution. On Tuesday, take an early or late lunch, grab a sandwich, and call all the regional offices of your Senator and pro-deal Congressperson. Try the Washington office, but you’re not likely to get through. Identify yourself and ask the person who answers the phone if his or her boss has had a chance to read the open letter about the deal signed now by 245 senior military officers. The staffer will either say “yes” or that he or she doesn’t know. If you get the second response, tell the person you will fax the office a copy of the letter. Do this. If the receptionist says “yes,” ask what the Senator or Rep thinks of it. More than likely you’ll get a guarded reply: the letter will be taken into consideration. Tell the person you’d like her boss, or his, to give it another look and that you will be faxing a copy. Go ahead and do this. If the staffer wants to engage in a discussion about the letter, great. Reread it. It’s chilling and persuasive. Should the staff person mention another letter endorsing the treaty signed by officers -- including military chaplains -- remind him or her that as of now seven times as many generals and admirals have signed the letter in opposition to the agreement. They outrank as well as outnumber the agreement’s supporters. The pro-deal letter has an interesting caveat: JCPOA will be more effective than military action “assuming it is fully implemented.” Based on Iran’s performance over the past thirty years, there is no reason to assume this. “The deal requires verification” say the Obama loyalists blandly. Military leaders opposing the deal take the trouble to point out why verification will be so difficult. The 245-plus generals and admirals also remind Congress that While failing to assure prevention of Iran’s nuclear weapons development capabilities, the agreement provides by some estimates $150 billion dollars or more to Iran in the form of sanctions relief. As military officers, we find it unconscionable that such a windfall could be given to a regime that even the Obama administration has acknowledged will use a portion of such funds to continue to support terrorism in Israel, throughout the Middle East and globally, whether directly or through proxies. If you should have a chance to discuss the question with a staffer -- or anyone else -- it’s worth focusing for a moment on what “terrorism” means. Young people in excellent health, full of hopes and plans, will be blown up. Others will experience years of excruciating pain and multiple surgeries. The targets will include American servicemen abroad (like the Marines in Beirut in 1983) and Jews throughout the world (like those in the Buenos Aires Jewish Center building in 1994). It’s not likely you’ll get a chance to discuss the agreement. The point of the exercise is to keep the Senator or Congressperson’s phone and fax lines humming. Forward this request to friends, relatives you’re on speaking terms with, fellow church or synagogue members, and any others you think might take the time to phone and fax. This deal is potentially more likely to “fundamentally transform” America than even mass immigration. It’s worth taking a few minutes to try to kill it. The glass is still half-full. Read more: ___________________________ 
The Iran Deal Is The New Obamacare
BY RICH LOWRY AUGUST 7, 2015, 8:00 AM We’ve been here before. Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said a while ago that an Iran deal would be the health-care bill of President Barack Obama’s second term, and he was right. Like Obamacare, the Iran deal represents an ideological fixation of the president’s; it is unpopular; and it will get through Congress – or to be more exact, avoid disapproval by Congress – by sheer partisan force. When Obama mounted a defense of the deal in a speech at American University, it was aimed less at public persuasion – never a strength of his during the Obamacare debate – than base mobilization as he seeks to hold the Democrats he will need to sustain a veto of a resolution of disapproval. How else to explain a speech that chastised opponents for their “strident” rhetoric at the same time it contended that Iranian hard-liners “are making common cause with the Republican caucus,” a juvenile little jab worthy of a Daily Kos diarist? For years, we’ve heard Obama say that all options are on the table in forcing the Iranians to “end their nuclear program.” But he believed in having all options on the table about as much as he opposed gay marriage. Saying that he didn’t rule out military options was all about buying time until he could turn around and say, in effect, that a bad deal is better than all military options. Not that anyone, especially the Iranians, ever took him very seriously. This deal is the result of coercive diplomacy absent coercion. In essence, it allows Iran to become a threshold nuclear power (preserving much of its nuclear infrastructure and continuing to enrich) in exchange for us not having to do anything to try to stop Iran from becoming a threshold nuclear power. The president’s rebuttals of the critics of the agreement are wan and unpersuasive. On inspections: “This access can be with as little as 24 hours’ notice.” Underline the word “can” in that sentence. As the president later acknowledged, if Iran wants to block inspectors from a suspicious site, the question goes to a dispute-resolution process that takes up to 24 days. On the deal expiring: “It is true that some of the limitations regarding Iran’s peaceful program last only 15 years.” This is truly insipid. The whole point of the deal is to limit Iran’s “peaceful program” because no one believes that it is peaceful. On sanctions relief: “An argument against sanctions relief is effectively an argument against any diplomatic resolution of this issue.” No. It’s an argument against sanctions relief that provides a huge windfall to the regime in exchange for an inadequate deal. The president concedes that perhaps some of the tens of billions of dollars will go to military activities, but says Iran has “engaged in these activities for decades” – which isn’t much of a case for giving it the resources to fund them more lavishly. The crux of the president’s case is that there is no alternative to his path except war. But the sanctions regime was biting. It could have been preserved and even tightened, and coupled with a credible threat of force, could have produced a much better agreement. Instead, Obama has been palpably desperate for a deal, and desperate to bypass Congress. There will be a congressional vote, but on terms exactly reversed from what it takes to approve a treaty (it will take a two-thirds supermajority to block rather than approve). Even so, Obama went to the United Nations Security Council before Congress, and the international-sanctions regime has already effectively been unraveled. This means that like Obamacare, the Iran deal, too, will carry a taint of illegitimacy. It, too, will become something that Republicans pledge to reverse. It, too, will have its ultimate standing decided by the 2016 election. It, too, in sum, is supposed to be a great credit to the president’s legacy, when it is really a disgrace. ___________________________  Iran's heavy water nuclear facility is backdropped by mountains near the central city of Arak, Iran / AP
Iran Bans U.S. Inspectors from All Nuclear SitesNo Americans permitted under final nuclear deal
Iran's heavy water nuclear facility is backdropped by mountains near the central city of Arak, Iran / AP BY: Adam Kredo July 16, 2015 4:20 pm U.S. and Iranian officials confirmed Thursday that no American nuclear inspectors will be permitted to enter the country’s contested nuclear site under the parameters of a deal reached with world powers this week, according to multiple statements by American and Iranian officials. Under the tenants of the final nuclear deal reached this week in Vienna, only countries with normal diplomatic relations with Iran will be permitted to participate in inspections teams organized by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The revelation of this caveat has attracted concern from some analysts who maintain that only American experts can be trusted to verify that Iran is not cheating on the deal and operating clandestine nuclear facilities. The admission is the latest in a series of apparent concessions made by the United States to Iran under the deal. Other portions of the agreement include a promise by the United States to help Iran combat nuclear sabotage and threats to its program. “Iran will increase the number of designated IAEA inspectors to the range of 130-150 within 9 months from the date of the implementation of the JCPOA, and will generally allow the designation of inspectors from nations that have diplomatic relations with Iran, consistent with its laws and regulations,” the deal states, according to text released by the Russians and Iranians. Susan Rice, President Obama’s national security adviser, confirmed this in an interview with CNN. “There are not going to be independent American inspectors separate from the IAEA” on the ground in Iran, Rice said. “The IAEA will be doing the inspections on behalf of the U.S. and the rest of the international community.” Rice said that the Obama administration trusts those countries whose relations with Iran are normalized to carry out inspections of the Islamic Republic’s sensitive nuclear sites. “The IAEA, which is a highly respected international organization will field an international team of inspectors, and those inspectors will in all likelihood come from IAEA member states, most of whom have diplomatic relations with Iran,” Rice said. “We of course are a rare exception.” Elliott Abrams, a former White House National Security Council director under George W. Bush, criticized the administration for consenting to Iranian demands. “It’s ironic that after Wendy Sherman told us about how Kerry and Zarif had tears in their eyes thinking about all they had accomplished together, we learn that the Islamic Republic won’t allow one single American inspector,” Abrams said, referring to John Kerry and Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister. “No member of the P5+1 [negotiating team] should be barred, and this is another example of how badly the administration negotiated.” “We should have insisted that the ‘no Americans’ rule was simply unacceptable,” Abrams said. “But there was no end to U.S. concessions.” One American source who was present in Vienna for the talks said the ban on all U.S. inspectors is the result of Iranian demands in the negotiating room. “The administration promised the American people and their lawmakers that we would be implementing the most robust inspection regime in the history of the world and that we would know what’s happening on the ground,” the source said. “Now they tell us America can’t have anything to do with the inspection regime because we don’t have diplomatic relations with Iran. I guess we should be grateful they’re not solving this problem by opening up a U.S. embassy in Tehran.” Obama administration officials also admitted recently that promises for “anytime, anywhere” inspections of Iran’s nuclear sites were a rhetorical flight of fancy. “I think this is one of those circumstance where we have all been rhetorical from time to time,” lead U.S. negotiator Wendy Sherman told reporters this week. “That phrase, ‘anytime, anywhere,’ is something that became popular rhetoric, but I think people understood that if the IAEA felt it had to have access, and had a justification for that access, that it would be guaranteed, and that is what happened.” U.S. concessions on the structure of the inspections regime have allowed Iran to delay inspections of sensitive sites for at least 24 days. |
