Obama sides with Iran over the U.S. Congress

President Obama has not only granted major concessions in striking a deal with Iran, but in doing so he sided with one of the world's leading state sponsors of terrorism over the U.S. Congress.

Under the deal, which is being touted by the administration as halting Iran's progress toward a nuclear weapon while talks continue, Iran would get $6 billion to $7 billion in relief from economic sanctions and would still be allowed to enrich uranium at lower levels.

Though the sanctions relief would be immediate, according to the New York Times, the deal -- if actually respected by Iran -- would only add a few weeks or "perhaps more than a month" to the time it would take Iran to produce enough enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon.

Elsewhere, the Times' David Sanger notes that "the deal does not roll back the vast majority of the advances Iran has made in the past five years, which have drastically shortened what nuclear experts call its “dash time” to a bomb -- the minimum time it would take to build a weapon if Iran's supreme leader or military decided to pursue that path."

Though the administration is claiming that the deal doesn't explicitly recognize Iran's right to enrich uranium, in practice, it continues to allow them to enrich uranium. As the Times put it, "American officials signaled last week that they were open to a compromise in which the two sides would essentially agree to disagree on how the proliferation treaty should be interpreted, while Tehran continued to enrich."

What's especially striking is that though Obama constantly decries the inability of members of Congress to find common ground, sanctions against Iran have been one of the truly bipartisan issues over the past several years.

In December 2011, the U.S. Senate voted 100 to 0 for sanctions against Iran. In November 2012, the chamber voted 94 to 0 in favor of new sanctions. And last week, a bipartisan group of 14 senators sent a letter to Obama pledging to move forward with new sanctions and expressing concern about a final deal that would allow Iran to continue enriching uranium.

The fact that Congress seemed determined to impose new sanctions only added to the urgency for the Obama administration to strike a deal.

The State Department, CNN reported last week, "is in a race against the clock to close a deal, before Congress makes good on its threat to impose new sanctions against Iran."

The Times reported that the deal's "limited sanctions relief can be accomplished by executive order, allowing the Obama administration to make the deal without having to appeal to Congress, where there is strong criticism of any agreement that does not fully dismantle Iran’s nuclear program."

In his Saturday night address touting the deal, Obama took a shot at Congress, declaring, "now is not the time to move forward on new sanctions."

The deal sends another signal to Iran's leaders — who have called for death to America and for the destruction of Israel — that Obama isn't serious about preventing them from obtaining a nuclear weapon.


http://washingtonexaminer.com/obama-sides-with-iran-over-the-u.s.-congress/article/2539702

NPR

What You Should Know About The Iran Nuclear Deal

Eyder Peralta November 24, 2013

Just before the sun rose on Geneva on Sunday, international negotiators emerged to announce Iran and world powers had reached a deal to curb Iran's nuclear program for six months while the two sides work out a permanent, more sweeping solution.

Today, the deal is being called historic. USA Today says it may be President Obama's most unlikely and most meaningful foreign policy victory during his time in office.

In short, it is the first time in about a decade that Iran has agreed to halt some of its nuclear activities. Also, this is the most tangible outcome of a newly thawed relationship between the U.S. and Iran. Remember, the two countries have had no formal ties since the 1979 Iranian Revolution. That all changed when Obama and Iran's new, moderate president, Hassan Rouhani, exchanged letters in September.

Later that month, after Rouhani set a new tone during his first visit to the United Nations, the two leaders exchanged a historic phone call. After marathon negotiating sessions, which included two trips to Geneva by Secretary of State John Kerry, Iran reached a deal with the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (U.S., Russia, China, U.K., France) plus Germany.

During a rare Saturday night address, Obama told the country that while this is "just a first step, it achieves a great deal."

"Today, that diplomacy opened up a new path toward a world that is more secure — a future in which we can verify that Iran's nuclear program is peaceful and that it cannot build a nuclear weapon," Obama said.

Perhaps the most succinct analysis of the deal was tweeted by Ali Vaez, a senior Iran analyst for International Crisis Group, which describes itself as an "independent, non-partisan, source of analysis and advice to governments, and intergovernmental bodies."

Vaez tweeted: "Like hurdling track and field, springing over the first obstacle does not guarantee victory. But without it the race is lost."

With that, here is what you should know about this deal with Iran:

-- The Fine Print: As the White House explained the deal in a "fact sheet," Iran has agreed to halt any enrichment above 5 percent and neutralize any of its stockpile that is near-20 percent, which is very close to weapons-grade fuel.

Iran has also agreed to "unprecedented transparency and intrusive monitoring" of its nuclear program.

In return, the U.S. and its partners have agreed to drop some of its sanctions, amounting to about $6 to $7 billion in relief.

-- On Some Enrichment, They've Agreed To Disagree: One of the toughest diplomatic dances that happened in this agreement is about Iran's "right to enrich." Iran has insisted that the world recognize it has a right to enrich uranium for peaceful means. The U.S. has insisted that it has never recognized that right for other countries and it would not do so for Iran.

As The New York Times reports, the two sides have agreed to let ambiguity rule in this case.

"American officials signaled last week that they were open to a compromise in which the two sides would essentially agree to disagree on how the proliferation treaty should be interpreted, while Tehran continued to enrich," the Times adds.

That is: Iran will claim the world has acknowledged its right to enrich; the U.S. will say it has not.

-- Israel Is Not Happy: "What was concluded in Geneva last night is not a historic agreement, it's a historic mistake," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters. "It's not made the world a safer place. Like the agreement with North Korea in 2005, this agreement has made the world a much more dangerous place."

Netanyahu especially objected to the lifting of any sanctions.

"Without continued pressure, what incentive does the Iranian regime have to take serious steps that actually dismantle its nuclear weapons capability?" Netanyahu said.

Obama addressed some of these concerns last night, saying if Iran does not meet its obligations, the sanctions can be rolled out again.

"The broader architecture of sanctions will remain in place and we will continue to enforce them vigorously," Obama said. "And if Iran does not fully meet its commitments during this six-month phase, we will turn off the relief and ratchet up the pressure."

-- The GOP Isn't Happy: Politico reports that shortly after negotiators in Geneva announced they had reached a deal, Congressional Republicans began panning it.

Politico reports:

"Congressional Republicans questioned whether the deal would actually prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon because they will still be able to enrich uranium — something the nation says is needed for power plants.

"'This agreement will not 'freeze' Iran's nuclear program and won't require the regime to suspend all enrichment as required by multiple UN Security Council resolutions,' Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said in a statement. 'By allowing the Iranian regime to retain a sizable nuclear infrastructure, this agreement makes a nuclear Iran more likely. There is now an even more urgent need for Congress to increase sanctions until Iran completely abandons its enrichment and reprocessing capabilities.'"


During his speech last night, Obama warned lawmakers not to scuttle this deal by imposing new sanctions on Iran.

"Doing so would derail this promising first step, alienate us from our allies and risk unraveling the coalition that enabled our sanctions to be enforced in the first place," Obama said.

-- Eyes Wide Open: Reacting to criticism from the GOP and Israel, Secretary of State John Kerry told CNN that they were going into this deal with "eyes wide open."

This deal is not about trust, he said. This a deal contingent on intrusive, on-the-ground inspections.

"We're going to verify and verify and verify and verify," Kerry said.

Plus, Kerry said, Iran has committed to neutralizing its higher-enriched uranium. So, under this plan, the country will go from having about 407 pounds of 20 percent-enriched uranium to zero.

That, Kerry said, will extend the amount of time needed for Iran to build a nuclear weapon and consequently make Israel and Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia safer.

"The clock is set backwards," Kerry said.

-- Iran's Currency Jumped 3 Percent: The sanctions imposed by the U.S. and its allies against Iran have been crippling. Iran's currency, the rial, lost about two-thirds of its value against the dollar because of the sanctions.

But Reuters reports that after the deal was announced, the currency gained a bit of traction, rising 3 percent against the dollar on Sunday.

-- Iranophobia Lost, Says Rouhani: During a press briefing in Tehran on Sunday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that these negotiations mean that "enemy" attempts to "promote Iranophobia" failed.

"The result of the negotiations is that the G5+1 or, in other words, the world powers have now recognized Iran's nuclear rights," Rouhani said, according to the official state news agency Fars. "During the talks, the world came to understand that respecting the Iranian nation would bear results, and sanctions would not work."

-- Deal Reached Through Secret Talks? Quoting "three senior administration officials," the AP reports that this deal was built on a year's worth of secret "high-level, face-to-face talks."

The AP adds:

"The discussions were kept hidden even from America's closest friends, including its negotiating partners and Israel, until two months ago, and that may explain how the nuclear accord appeared to come together so quickly after years of stalemate and fierce hostility between Iran and the West.

"But the secrecy of the talks may also explain some of the tensions between the U.S. and France, which earlier this month balked at a proposed deal, and with Israel, which is furious about the agreement and has angrily denounced the diplomatic outreach to Tehran.

"President Barack Obama personally authorized the talks as part of his effort — promised in his first inaugural address — to reach out to a country the State Department designates as the world's most active state sponsor of terrorism.

"The talks were held in the Middle Eastern nation of Oman and elsewhere with only a tight circle of people in the know, the AP learned. Since March, Deputy Secretary of State William Burns and Jake Sullivan, Vice President Joe Biden's top foreign policy adviser, have met at least five times with Iranian officials."


-- So What's Next? NPR's Peter Kenyon, who has been covering these negotiations in Geneva, tells Weekend Edition Sunday that what this preliminary deal has told us is that future negotiations will be very difficult.

For example, Peter says, a grand deal would require the big sanctions on Iranian oil to be dropped. Those were passed by Congress and have to be dropped by Congress. If recent history is any indicator, getting anything through Congress will prove challenging.

On the positive side, Peter points out, Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, praised the deal, saying it could serve as a "basis for future prudent measures." His buy-in was essential for any of this to have legs going into broader negotiations.

I read that earlier. I was taken back by some of the comments after the article. They immediately proclaimed that the Republicans resistance proved they were war mongers. They said the same of Netanyahu. I'm surprised you think that disapproval from Netanyahu is baseless. Who would know better than the leader of a country that is located next to iran and is one of the United States's most important allies in that region?

War with Iran is not an option. Obama has done a great job with gathering consensus on the sanctions that crushed the Iranian economy, and that's why they came to the table. Enough with the wars. They always create a new class of grieving families and disabled veterans.

BS! What happens in 6 months?

What is going on behind the scenes? You trust iran?!

fshnski wrote:BS! What happens in 6 months?

What is going on behind the scenes? You trust iran?!

Iran is a country of 75 million people who are allies with Russia and can easily be aroused to go to war with us. Here are 2 questions:

1-How many thousands of more American lives are you willing to sacrifice to wage war with Iran?
2-How much more in taxes are you willing to pay to finance a multi-trillion dollar war with iran?

Thank God Obama is the President, and not neocons like Bush and Cheney.

I guess it's time to change are allegiance from the Jewish to the muslims.

A growing number of Democrats AND Republicans expressed deep skepticism over the deal Sunday, while the Israeli Prime Minister called the interim pact 'a historic mistake.' But Secretary of State John Kerry, during a morning show media blitz, insisted the world would eventually see the deal's upside and vehemently rejected calls for new sanctions.

Lawmakers on Sunday overwhelmingly rejected the historic deal the U.S. reached with Iran a day earlier for Tehran to halt its nuclear program in exchange for eased economic sanctions.
A slew of Republicans as well several key Democrats warned that Congress could actually tighten sanctions following the deal’s announcement because they felt Iran didn’t cede enough ground in the pact.

“The disproportionality of this agreement makes it more likely that Democrats and Republicans will join together and pass additional sanctions when we return in December,” New York Democrat Sen. Chuck Schumer said at a Sunday press conference.

“It was strong sanctions, not the goodness of the hearts of the Iranian leaders, that brought Iran to the table. And any reduction relieves the pressure of sanctions and gives them the hope that they will be able to obtain a nuclear weapon,” Schumer added.

New York Democratic Rep. Eliot Engel called the deal, which doesn’t forbid Iran from enriching uranium altogether within the deal’s six-month framework, “very disappointing” and expressed a deep-seeded wariness of the country’s intentions.

“We need to be very, very careful with the Iranians. I don't trust them. I don't think we should trust them,” Engel said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Under the terms of the surprise six-month interim agreement -- which was designed to pave the way for a broader, longer-term agreement to scale back Iran’s controversial nuclear program -- the isolated country committed to capping certain uranium enrichment levels, stopping the use of its centrifuges that enrich uranium and providing access to its nuclear sites to inspectors.

But in a rare moment of Washington bipartisanship, several Republicans agreed Sunday that Congress should push forward with new sanctions against Iran because negotiations have only made the White House appear weak.

“From their standpoint, they see this as their window of opportunity to negotiate with an administration that has shown that it really doesn’t have a lot of the intestinal fortitude that other administrations have had,” Tennessee Republican Sen. Bob Corker said on “Fox News Sunday.”

"If you see the reaction in Iran right now, they’re spiking the football in the end zone saying, 'look, we’ve consolidated our gains, we’ve relieved sanctions, we’re going to have the right to enrich,’" Corker added.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), meanwhile, said easing up sanctions could to even worse circumstances in the Middle East.
“We’ve taken away the one thing that brought them to the table,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” We may have just encouraged more violence in the future than we’ve stopped.”

The strongly-worded threats -- along with a booming rejection of the deal by Israel -- signaled a potentially severe setback to the White House that could hamper, or even derail, the deal.

“What was achieved last night in Geneva is not an historic agreement; it is an historic mistake,” Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said Sunday. “Lifting the pressure, this first step might be the last step.”


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/john-kerry-defends-historic-iran-deal-sunday-media-blitz-blast-pact-article-1.1527361#ixzz2lccnrWDu

News Buzzard wrote:War with Iran is not an option. Enough with the wars. They always create a new class of grieving families and disabled veterans.

Well, you are 100 percent correct there.

Now, if O-Bomb-Ya might reconsider the drone strikes, we'd be getting somewhere.

fshnski wrote:I guess it's time to change are allegiance from the Jewish to the muslims.

How about allegiance to America, to liberty and to peace?

If Israel has an issue with Iran that they feel needs warfare to stop, then let ISRAEL go to war.

Ronald Reagan's smartest move was to remove Marines from Lebanon after the barracks attack.

To hell with all of them, if the fedgov does not shut us down, we will be energy independent in another 5 years.

We don't need their oil, we don't need to play both sides against the middle, we don't need to have anything to do with them.

News Buzzard wrote:

fshnski wrote:BS! What happens in 6 months?

What is going on behind the scenes? You trust iran?!

Iran is a country of 75 million people who are allies with Russia and can easily be aroused to go to war with us.

I think they have shown remarkable restraint myself.

We overthrew their government in 1952, leading to the nightmare of the Shah's regime and his secret police.

Then we supported Saddam in a bloody trench war against Iran, leading to hundreds of thousands dead.

Now, we are running Al-Qaeda affiliated terror groups inside Iran to destabilize them.

And people wonder why they "hate" us.

News Buzzard wrote:War with Iran is not an option. Obama has done a great job with gathering consensus on the sanctions that crushed the Iranian economy, and that's why they came to the table. Enough with the wars. They always create a new class of grieving families and disabled veterans.

They "come to the table" for 7 Billion of US taxpayer dollars. That's plenty of "humanitarian aid" to squelch the genuine uprisings of Iran's unhappy youth. (That Obama didn't take the earlier opportunity to advance).

It's another diversion from ObamaCare—negotiations held secret from US citizens by the US media.

Obama is also dealing with Hezb'Allah, the Terrorist organization that killed 300 US troops in Lebanon, and has infiltrated its neighbors to create (with Obama's help—SUCCESS so far) The Coming of the Sixth Imam—meaning "The Caliphate" that will take over the entire Middle East, and make war on "The Great Satan".

Instead of swords, it'll be nukes.

What can John F. Kerry screw up next?

 

Magical thinking — expecting unrealistic outcomes to result from mistaken assumptions — is a foolish foundation for foreign policy decisions. But how else to explain the Geneva deal with Iran?

Take Secretary of State John Kerry's expectation for the six months of continued negotiations called for in the agreement:

"Under the terms of this agreement, there will be a negotiation over whether or not they can have a very limited, completely verifiable, extraordinarily constrained program where they might have a medical program or other things they could do, but there is no inherent right to enrich."

If Kerry genuinely believes that Iran is going to negotiate on such a basis — much less ever actually agree to such a deal — he may be seen looking out his office window this morning looking for porcine formations circling over Foggy Bottom.

Rather than being a step toward a severely limited nuclear program devoted to peaceful purposes like medicine, the Geneva deal confirms Tehran's continued uranium enrichment efforts that clearly are intended to put the Iranians in position to produce a nuclear bomb.

And why on earth would the Iranians negotiate for six more months except to demand more concessions, including especially further loosening of international economic sanctions?

Listen to Riyadh's silence

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu left no doubt that Israel views the Geneva deal as a mistake of historic proportions.

But the silence from Saudi Arabia condemns the deal even more loudly. As word of it spread over the weekend, Saudi King Abdullah held hushed talks with other Arab Gulf leaders.

Nothing was said by Abdullah following those talks, however, which was in itself a forceful statement that cannot be ignored.

It was, after all, Abdullah who told Obama three years ago with regard to Iran that it was time to "cut off the head of the snake." Obama has instead struck a poisonous deal with the viper.


http://washingtonexaminer.com/us-got-iran-talks-strategy-from-disney-school-of-diplomacy/article/2539716

News Buzzard wrote:

fshnski wrote:BS! What happens in 6 months?

What is going on behind the scenes? You trust iran?!

Iran is a country of 75 million people who are allies with Russia and can easily be aroused to go to war with us. Here are 2 questions:

1-How many thousands of more American lives are you willing to sacrifice to wage war with Iran?
2-How much more in taxes are you willing to pay to finance a multi-trillion dollar war with iran?

Thank God Obama is the President, and not neocons like Bush and Cheney.

The 9/11 attack has cost us over $1 trillion dollars—and that used no nukes.

Iran, thanks to the war with Iraq has become a very youthful and unsettled country. Obama had an opportunity to side with Iran's students in their rebellion in 2009. He did nothing!

Obama's War directed against Libya cost us no American lives. You can't go on "appeasing". (As Britain's Conservative PM Neville Chamberlain discovered).

Would you have appeased Hitler after he invaded Poland?

Israel has been stabbed in the back by THIS DOOFUS.

The Obama administration, in what’s been called an egregious slap in the face to the Vatican, has moved to shut down the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See — a free-standing facility — and relocate offices onto the grounds of the larger American Embassy in Italy.

The new offices will be in a separate building on the property, Breitbart reported.

And while U.S. officials are touting the relocation as a security measure that’s a cautionary reaction to last year’s attacks on America's facility in Benghazi, several former American envoys are raising the red flag.

It’s a “massive downgrade of U.S.-Vatican ties,” said former U.S. Ambassador James Nicholson in the National Catholic Reporter. “It’s turning this embassy into a stepchild of the embassy to Italy. The Holy See is a pivot point for international affairs and a major listening post for the United States, and … [it’s] an insult to American Catholics and to the Vatican.”

Mr. Nicholson — whose views were echoed by former envoys Francis Rooney, Mary Ann Glendon, Raymond Flynn and Thomas Melady — also called the justification for closing the existing facility a “smokescreen,” Breitbart reported.

“That’s like saying people get killed on highways because they drive cars on them,” he said in the report. “We’re not a pauper nation … if we want to secure an embassy, we certainly can.”

Moreover, the existing facility has “state of the art” security, he said.

Mr. Flynn, meanwhile, said the administration’s announcement reflects a hostility toward the Catholic Church.

“It’s not just those who bomb churches and kill Catholics in the Middle East who are our antagonists, but it’s also those who restrict our religious freedoms and want to close down our embassy to the Holy See,” he said in the National Catholic Reporter. “[There’s no] diplomatic or political benefit to the United States” from the relocation at all, he added.

Catholic Vote, a publication for the Church community, called the move “an unmistakable slap in the face” that clearly communicates that the United States cares little for the diplomatic facility.

And Mr. Nicholson went on, as Breitbart reported: “It’s another manifestation of the antipathy of this administration both to Catholics and to the Vatican — and to Christians in the Middle East. This is a key post for intermediation in so many sovereignties but particularly in the Middle East. This is anything but a good time to diminish the stature of this post. To diminish the stature of this post is to diminish its influence.”


Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/nov/26/obamas-call-close-holy-see-embassy-slap-face-catho/#ixzz2llKSarAi
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I'd be happy to have them gone, if I were the Holy See.

obervantone wrote:"...Iran has also agreed to "unprecedented transparency and intrusive monitoring" of its nuclear program..."

Who gets to select which "nuclear sites" get inspected?

Tehran!

Guess what?

With Iran able to sell its oil, the price of oil will come down. (American-produced oil will become more costly, and America's recent "boom towns" will slow).

News Buzzard wrote:War with Iran is not an option. Obama has done a great job with gathering consensus on the sanctions that crushed the Iranian economy, and that's why they came to the table. Enough with the wars. They always create a new class of grieving families and disabled veterans.

Iran is known to be working on ICBMs–Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. According to the Obama Defense Department’s “Annual Report on the Military Power of Iran,” published in April of 2012, US intelligence estimates indicate that Iran will be capable of testing Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles in 2015.

War with Iran IS an option.

News Buzzard wrote:

fshnski wrote:"...You trust Iran?!

Thank God Obama is the President, and not neocons like Bush and Cheney.

Well, now we know what a "neocon" is.

...sorta...

 


.

I was scratching my head about that too!

News Hawk wrote:

War with Iran IS an option.

Not when you're $18 Trillion in debt it's not.

I don't think NH is talking about the US going there.

In what’s sure to fuel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s angst over the American-forged nuclear development deal with Tehran, the foreign minister of Iran said Friday that all further discussions will have to leave out Israel.

The nation's state-run news agency, IRNA, quoted Mohammad Javad Zarif as saying that Iran “would not attend a meeting in which the Quds [or Jerusalem] occupy regime participates. We consider the Zionist regime as the biggest danger to the region and the world.”

The remarks follow the six-month agreement reached between the United States, Iran and five other world powers that Israel’s Mr. Netanyahu has described as giving Tehran all the power.

He slammed the agreement as a “historic mistake,” and said the international heads of state ought instead of drawn a pact that called for Iran to disarm, The Times of Israel reported.

Iran’s foreign minister issued the warning based on hearing of Israel’s possible involvement in the next round of nuclear talks, due in six months or so, when the current deal deadlines.



Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/nov/29/iran-ultimatum-new-nuclear-talks-no-zionist-israel/#ixzz2m4HVZCdR
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