Iran nuclear deal signed in Geneva

Chuck Schumer is bucking the White House on Iran, and it's a big deal

1 At this point, the biggest practical impediment to moving from Obama's Iran framework to a formal deal is that the US Congress might scuttle the arrangement.

2 Chuck Schumer raised the odds that scuttling will happen by reiterating his support for a bill written by Bob Corker (R-TN) that would give Congress the right to approve or reject any relaxation of sanctions on Iran.

3 Schumer's support for Corker bill isn't new, but some Democrats who had previously backed the bill had indicated wavering support once a deal was in hand.

4 Schumer's support is particularly relevant because he is set to succeed Harry Reid as the Democratic Party leader in the US Senate. That should undermine White House efforts to paint opposition to Corker as a matter of partisan loyalty.


Chuck Schumer is a really sincere and committed Israel hawk

As it happens, I was an intern in Schumer's New York office 15 years ago. Many politicians on Capitol Hill do not have deep convictions about questions related to Israel, and largely let their actions be dictated by political considerations — which, given the clout of pro-Israel lobbying groups, tends to push them in a more hawkish direction.

Fifteen years ago, at least, Schumer was very much the opposite kind of politician.

I spent some time with him before and after press events on Israel-related matters, and the issue was both a genuine passion point for him and something where the communications staff tended to try to sand the hawkish edges off his gut reactions to events.

In 2010, Schumer explained to a New York radio station that his name "comes from the word shomer, guardian, watcher" and that he believes that "one of my roles, very important in the United States Senate, is to be a shomer — or the shomer Yisrael. And I will continue to be that with every bone in my body."

In other words, if Schumer thinks scuttling a deal is the right thing for Israel, then he is going to work hard to scuttle the deal.

Can Obama uphold a veto on Corker's bill?

Of course, just because Bob Corker may be able to pass a bill doesn't mean the bill will become law. The real question is whether hawks in Congress can muster enough votes to override an Obama veto. To accomplish that, Republicans need a two-thirds supermajority in both houses of Congress.

Thanks to the filibuster, we've grown accustomed to the Senate as being the place where majority-supported legislation goes to die.

But given Schumer's support for the Corker bill, the harder road for the GOP may be through the House of Representatives. It will take 290 House votes to overcome a veto in the House. Assuming the GOP can count on all 245 Republicans, that still leaves them in need of 45 Democrats — and due to a mix of gerrymandering and Democrats' poor performance in the 2014 midterms, there are very few Democratic incumbents holding Republican-leading seats.

Steny Hoyer could be the key player

Republican hopes, then, depend on finding Schumer-like figures — Democrats in position of authority in the caucus who support a hard line on Iran out of conviction rather than political expediency. A pivotal player here is likely going to be Steny Hoyer, the number-two Democrat in the House and traditionally a strong ally of pro-Israel groups. On April 2, Hoyer offered a broadly supportive but also noncommittal statement on the Iran framework indicating that he is interested in listening to more arguments.

If Hoyer stays on-side, then it is hard to see how the bill could overcome an Obama veto regardless of what happens in the Senate. But if Hoyer joins Schumer as another prominent caucus leader bucking the president, the deal could be in real trouble on Capitol Hill.

Yes, Israel could bomb Iran. Whether it will succeed in inflicting significant damage is another question. Iran is not like Iraq. It's much bigger for a start, with a land mass 4 times larger than Iraq's. Its population is more than twice the Iraqi population, and its economy is three times larger.

Iran is also a nation state dating back to antiquity, cohesive and proud. Iraq is just a mix of territories and disparate people artificially lumped together by the Brits, with no cohesion. So there's no comparison.

Iran is not a democracy by western standards but far closer to one than Saddam's regime ever was. As a consequence, the Iranians will fight for their country tooth and nail. They won't run from the battlefield like the Iraqis always do...

If Israel bombs Iran, chances are Iraq and Syria will grant passage to the Iranian army. They already need them to fight ISIS off. ISIS is already being pounced by Iranians as we speak, so in a matter of days Iran should be in a position to launch a ground invasion of Israel from Syria, and would have the right to do so, acting in self-defense.

That's a fight the IDF is not ready for.

Remember their less-than-stelar performance against Hezbollah in 2006?

In this scenario, they'd have to face a modern army of hundreds of thousands, plus the Hezbollah and Iraqi Shia militias...

Iran is not capable of deploying an effective invasion force to the Israeli border.

You have to give the Isralie military credit, when those 8 year pal kids throw rocks at them they retaliate with tanks and 60 cal. machineguns.

You have to give the Isralie military credit, when those 8 year pal kids throw rocks at them they retaliate with tanks and 60 cal. machineguns.

oralloy wrote:

Iran is not capable of deploying an effective invasion force to the Israeli border.

Why not?

Whatever the scenario, the reason Israel has not bombed Iran and IMO will not bomb Iran any time soon is that IDF top brass assess that adventure as way too risky for the country.

This is why Israel has asked the US and Europe to intervene instead.

You never did tell how much Israel pays you for the BS you post here.

Iran nuclear: No guarantee of final deal, Khamenei says

Last week Iran and world powers reached a framework agreement on the issue.

But Iran also wants sanctions lifted "on the first day" of the final deal's implementation, against US wishes.

Iranian and US officials have been trying to persuade hardliners in both countries to back the deal.

The deal stipulates Iran must slash its stockpile of enriched uranium that could be used in a nuclear weapon, and cut by more than two-thirds the number of centrifuges that could be used to make more.




In return, UN sanctions and separate measures imposed unilaterally by the US and EU will be lifted as the global nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), confirms Iranian compliance.

'Snap back'

In a statement on his website, Mr Khamenei said "it is possible that the untrustworthy side [the six world powers who negotiated the agreement] wants to restrict our country in the details".

"I have never been optimistic about negotiating with America. While I was not optimistic, I agreed with this particular negotiation and supported the negotiators," the statement went on.

Mr Khamenei also echoed earlier comments by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, in which he insisted that sanctions must be lifted as soon as a final deal was implemented.

"We will sign no agreement but the one that immediately abolishes all the economic sanctions on the first day of the implementation of the agreement," Mr Rouhani said on Thursday.

Ayatollah Khamenei has decided to sit on the fence, for the time being. He says he will neither endorse or reject the agreement.

A lot of details will have to be dealt with, he says, before the preliminary agreement from last week will turn into a final agreement at the end of June - the deadline the two sides have set themselves for a comprehensive solution to Iran's nuclear problem.

But by not rejecting it, he has, in effect, consented to the premise of the agreement - that Iran would limit its nuclear activities in return for the lifting of sanctions. And that is a major step for the hardliners in Iran, including the country's leader.

Mr Rouhani's comments signal a difference in opinion with Western powers, who have said sanctions relief will be gradual and conditional on Iranian co-operation.

On Monday, American officials made clear sanctions would have to be lifted in phases.

"It has never been our position that all of the sanctions against Iran should be removed from day one," White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters.

The US state department has published what it sees as the parameters of the agreement, one of which states: "If at any time Iran fails to fulfil its commitments, these sanctions will snap back into place."

The deal was celebrated by many in Iran but was dismissed by hardliners who say Iran surrendered too much in exchange for too little.

Similarly, some in the US Congress have been sceptical of the deal, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has expressed fervent opposition.

Don't underestimate Iran.

Some of the world's finest scientists and mathematicians are there, having returned after years of studies at some of the world's best universities.

It's a smart, educated population with money and tremendous access to, and understanding of, technology.

I don't know why you decided to back Obama on this one. I expect you to go back to kissing Bibi's ass in no time. And Bibi hates that deal. Didn't you get the memo?

This deal isn't perfect, but I assess that it has a much higher chance of preventing Iranian nuclear weapons than bombing would achieve. In particular, allowing UN inspectors free access to their country will do much to curtail any covert nuclear program. In retrospect, I am very impressed with what UN inspectors achieved in Iraq.

It was but a year and a half ago that Barack Obama endorsed the objective of abolition when he said that Iran’s heavily fortified Fordow nuclear facility, its plutonium-producing heavy-water reactor and its advanced centrifuges were all unnecessary for a civilian nuclear program. The logic was clear: Since Iran was claiming to be pursuing an exclusively civilian program, these would have to go.

Yet under the deal Obama is now trying to sell, not one of these is to be dismantled. Indeed, Iran’s entire nuclear infrastructure is kept intact, just frozen or repurposed for the length of the deal (about a decade). Thus Fordow’s centrifuges will keep spinning. They will now be fed xenon, zinc and germanium instead of uranium. But that means they remain ready at any time to revert from the world’s most heavily (indeed comically) fortified medical isotope facility to a bomb-making factory.

And upon the expiration of the deal, conceded Obama Monday on NPR, Iran’s breakout time to a nuclear bomb will be “almost down to zero,” i.e., it will be able to produce nuclear weapons at will and without delay.

And then there’s cheating. Not to worry, says Obama. We have guarantees of compliance: “unprecedented inspections” and “snapback” sanctions.

The inspection promises are a farce. We haven’t even held the Iranians to their current obligation to come clean with the International Atomic Energy Agency on their previous nuclear activities. The IAEA charges Iran with stonewalling on 11 of 12 issues.

As veteran nuclear expert David Albright points out, that makes future verification impossible — how can you determine what’s been illegally changed or added if you have no baseline? Worse, there’s been no mention of the only verification regime with real teeth — at-will, unannounced visits to any facility, declared or undeclared. The joint European-Iranian statement spoke only of “enhanced access through agreed procedures,” which doesn’t remotely suggest anywhere/anytime inspections. And on Thursday, Iran’s supreme leader ruled out any “extraordinary supervision measures.”

The IAEA hasn’t been allowed to see the Parchin weaponization facility in 10 years. And the massive Fordow complex was disclosed not by the IAEA but by Iranian dissidents.

Yet even if violations are found, what then? First, they have to be certified by the IAEA. Which then reports to the United Nations, where Iran has the right to challenge the charge. Which then has to be considered, argued and adjudicated. Which then presumably goes to the Security Council where China, Russia and sundry anti-Western countries will act as Iran’s lawyers. Which all would take months — after which there is no guarantee that China and Russia will ratify the finding anyway.

As for the “snapback” sanctions — our last remaining bit of pressure — they are equally fantastic. There’s no way sanctions will be re-imposed once they have been lifted. It took a decade to weave China, Russia and the Europeans into the current sanctions infrastructure. Once gone, it doesn’t snap back. None will pull their companies out of a thriving, post-sanctions Iran. As Kissinger and Shultz point out, we will be fought every step of the way, leaving the United States, not Iran, isolated.

Obama imagines that this deal will bring Iran in from the cold, tempering its territorial ambitions and ideological radicalism. But this defies logic: With sanctions lifted, its economy booming and tens of billions injected into its treasury, why would Iran curb rather than expand its relentless drive for regional dominance?

An overriding objective of these negotiations, as Obama has said, is to prevent the inevitable proliferation — Egypt, Turkey, the Gulf states — that would occur if Iran went nuclear. Yet the prospective agreement is so clearly a pathway to an Iranian bomb that the Saudis are signaling that the deal itself would impel them to go nuclear.

You set out to prevent proliferation and you trigger it. You set out to prevent an Iranian nuclear capability and you legitimize it. You set out to constrain the world’s greatest exporter of terror threatening every one of our allies in the Middle East and you’re on the verge of making it the region’s economic and military hegemon.

What is the alternative, asks the president? He’s repeatedly answered the question himself: No deal is better than a bad deal.

Oh wow... Is that a spark of realism that crossed your mind? Congratulations.

Good points. Iran is playing for the long term and we are acting like a corporation that is willing to forget long term best interests for the next few quarters balance sheet.