Tag Archives: Iran nuclear deal

The Deep State First – Madness On Both Ends of the Acela Corridor, by David Stockman

Posted on May 12, 2018 | 1 comment

Sometimes a party to an agreement will abrogate the agreement because it believes the other party or parties have breached the agreement. The US is leaving the Iran nuclear deal although Iran, by even the US’s reckoning, has not breached any its provisions. From David Stockman at antiwar.com:

At his so-called Cabinet meeting this morning, the Donald basically threatened Iran with annihilation if it does what 15 other signatories to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) do every day: Namely, increase production of industrial grade nuclear fuel (3.5%-5.0% purity) at its enrichment plant at Natanz – which, in any event, is crawling with IAEA inspectors.

Moreover, it really doesn’t matter whether Trump was play-acting in the style of Art of the Deal or that the JPAOC could be improved.

The mere threat of a military attack from the White House is madness because it arises from blatant lies that have absolutely nothing to do with US national security. Nor, for that matter, the security of any other country in the region, including Saudi Arabia and Israel.

The real purpose of the Donald’s missile-rattling is nothing more than helping Bibi Netanyahu keep his coalition of right wing religious and settler parties (Likud, United Torah Judaism, Shas, Kulanu and the Jewish Home) together, thereby maintaining his slim 61-vote majority in the 120-seat Knesset.

Netanyahu’s malefic political glue is the utterly false claim that Iran is an “existential threat” to Israel because it is hell-bent on getting the bomb.

But that’s where the whopper comes in. It amounts to the ridiculous postulate that Iran is so fiendishly evil that if it is involved in the nuclear fuel cycle in any way, shape or form – presumably even just operating a uranium mine – it is only a matter of months before it will have a bomb.

As a matter of record, of course, Netanyahu has been saying this since the early 1990s and he has always been wrong because there were never any facts or logic to support his blatant fear-mongering. For example, here is the cartoon-style, evidence-free “proof” that he offered way back in 2012.

To continue reading: The Deep State First – Madness On Both Ends of the Acela Corridor

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America Just Sent a Chilling Message to North Korea by Nuking the Iran Deal, by Darius Shahtahmasebi

Posted on May 12, 2018 | 1 comment

It’s hard to see how the US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal will increase Kim Jong Un’s willingness to make a nuclear deal. From Darius Shahtahmasebi at theantimedia.org:

U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent decision to completely pull the plug on the 2015 Iranian nuclear accord, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), will likely have a major effect on the upcoming summit between North Korea and the United States. Even as the president was making his announcement, newly appointed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was reportedly on his way to North Korea to prepare for Trump’s meeting with Kim Jong Un.

Bloomberg reported prior to the decision that North Korea was watching Trump’s announcement on Iran, with China’s current envoy to the U.K. warning that if Trump walked away it would “set a bad example.”

However, according to a report by TIME, Trump is hoping his decision to walk away from the JCPOA combined with the decision to up the ante on economic sanctions will send a strong message to North Korea that he wants a “real deal.” However, other notable analysts are not convinced of the efficacy of this strategy.

“Trump has a very simple political program: ME, ME, ME,” public intellectual Professor Noam Chomsky told Anti-Media via email.  “It follows that if Obama did something, it has to be overturned by the Great Trump.  Obama made the deal with Iran, so it has to go.”

Chomsky added:

“Obama didn’t get anywhere with North Korea, so Trump has to do something – and if he and his advisers have at least half a brain still functioning, they will prance around in public proclaiming their magnificence and accept the plea of the Koreans to just go away and let them work things out in peace.”

Unsurprisingly, prominent Iranian-Americans have also voiced their frustration with Trump’s ill-advised decision to abandon the JCPOA, a move they believe sends a very clear message to the North Korean leadership.

“Trump’s reckless decision to withdraw from the Iran deal undermines the United State’s national interests, isolates us and further deteriorates our credibility with both allies and foes,” Executive Board Member of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), Saïd Amin told Anti-Media via email. “And on that last point, Kim Jong-un would be a fool to believe any promises made by the Trump administration. Today’s announcement to withdraw from the nuclear deal has all but rendered America’s word as worthless and sadly the damage will persist even after he’s gone.”

To continue reading: America Just Sent a Chilling Message to North Korea by Nuking the Iran Deal

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A New War Looms in The Mideast, by Eric Margolis

Posted on May 12, 2018 | 1 comment

Will the withdrawal from the Iran nuclear agreement lead to war? From Eric Margolis at lewrockwell.com:

Israel launched waves of air attacks and ground shelling on a score of alleged Iranian military positions in Syria this week.   Was this a big step forward in the plan by Israel’s leader Benjamin Netanyahu and his ally Donald Trump to provoke a major war with Iran?

It certainly looks so.  The US, Saudi Arabia and Israel all recently suffered a stinging defeat in Syria. Their campaign to overthrow the Assad government in Damascus by using the rag-tag ISIS movement, then Sunni Muslim jihadist wild men, was defeated by the Syrian Army, backed by Russian air power, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and some Iranian militia groups and army advisors.

Israel now claims to have wiped out more than a score of Iranian positions in Syria.  As far as we can tell, these were minor logistics or communications facilities, not the backbone of a supposed Iranian offensive against Israel.

In fact, the alleged Iranian rocket barrage was directed at the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights that were illegally annexed and occupied after the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and are still held, legally, as part of Syria. Israel is very nervous about having world attention drawn to its continued occupation of the strategic Golan Heights from which Israeli heavy artillery can reach Damascus.

But now that the Trump administration has fallen fully under the influence of the pro-war neocons, an attempt to overthrow the Iranian government appears highly likely, using both military intervention and intensified economic warfare.

Iran has been under siege by the US since the American/British installed shah was overthrown by a popular revolution in 1979. The CIA and Britain’s MI6 have mounted numerous attempts to oust the Islamic Republic and re-install a client ruler.

Ironically, the ‘democratic’ western powers – the US, Britain and France – rely on medieval monarchs and dictators to control the Mideast while democratic politicians and movements are ignored.  Iran, in spite of its many rigidities and failings, remains one of the region’s more democratic states.   Ask our Saudi or Kuwaiti allies when was the last time they held a real election?

To continue reading: A New War Looms in The Mideast

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Are Bibi and Bolton in the Wheel House Now? by Patrick J. Buchanan

Posted on May 11, 2018 | Leave a comment

Is Trump under the thumb of Netanyahu and the neocons. From Patrick J. Buchanan at buchanan.org:

Brushing aside the anguished pleas of our NATO allies, President Trump Tuesday contemptuously trashed the Iranian nuclear deal and reimposed sanctions.

Prime Minister Theresa May of Great Britain, President Emmanuel Macron of France and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were put on notice that their ties to Iran are to be severed, or secondary sanctions will be imposed on them.

Driving the point home, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin ordered Airbus to cancel its $19 billion contract to sell 100 commercial planes to Iran.

Who is cheering Trump’s trashing of the treaty?

The neocons who sought his political extinction in 2016, the royals of the Gulf, Bibi Netanyahu, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The IRGC had warned Iranians that the Americans were duplicitous.

When Trump finished speaking, Bibi launched strikes on Iranian bases in Syria, and flew to Moscow to persuade Vladimir Putin not to give the Iranians any air defense against Israeli attacks.

Iranian forces responded with 20 missiles fired at the Golan, which ignited a massive Israeli counterstrike Thursday night, a 70-missile attack on Iranian bases in Syria.

We appear to be at the beginning of a new war, and how it ends we know not. But for Bibi and National Security Adviser John Bolton, the end has always been clear — the smashing of Iran and regime change.

Tuesday, Trump warned that Iran is on “a quest for nuclear weapons,” and “if we do nothing … in just a short period of time, the world’s worst sponsor of state terror will be on the cusp of acquiring the world’s most dangerous weapon.”

And where is the evidence for this Bush-like assertion?

If Iran is on a “quest” for nukes, why did 17 U.S. intel agencies, “with high confidence,” in 2007 and 2011, say Iran did not even have a nuclear weapons program?

Saddam Hussein could not convince us he had no WMD, because the nonexistent WMD were the pretext, the casus belli, for doing what the War Party had already decided to do: invade Iraq.

We were lied into that war. And how did it turn out?

To continue reading: Are Bibi and Bolton in the Wheel House Now?

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The Art Of Breaking A Deal, by Pepe Escobar

Posted on May 11, 2018 | 1 comment

The real aim of breaking the Iran nuclear deal, according to Pepe Escobar, is to no Iran to become a major power in the Middle East. From Escobar at atimes.com:

US President Donald Trump shows the document reinstating sanctions against Iran. Photo: AFP / Saul Loeb

US President Donald Trump shows the document reinstating sanctions against Iran. Photo: AFP / Saul Loeb
Breaking the unwritten rules of global diplomacy, the Trump administration is now in violation of the multilateral Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or in plain language the Iran nuclear deal. Nuance is notoriously absent in what can only be described as a unilateral hard exit. 

All suspended United States sanctions against Iran will be reinstated, and harsh additional ones will be imposed.

It does not matter that the International Atomic Energy Agency, orIAEA, repeatedly confirmed Iran was complying with the JCPOA as verified by 11 detailed reports since January 2016. Even US Secretary of Defense James Mattis vouched for the stringent verification mechanisms.

Facts appear to be irrelevant, though. The JCPOA is the Obama administration’s only tangible foreign policy success, so, for domestic political reasons, it had to be destroyed.

President Donald Trump’s opening address to the “Iranian people” during his White House speech also does not cut it. The overwhelming majority of Iranians support the JCPOA, and counted on it to alleviate their economic plight.

Moreover, Trump’s regime change advisers support the exiled People’s Mojahedin Organization, or MEK, which is despised beyond belief inside Iran.

As a minor subplot, rational geopolitical actors are asking what sort of national security advisor would strategically “advise” his boss to blow up a multilateral, United Nations-endorsed, working nuclear deal?

To cut to the chase, the US decision to leave the JCPOA will not open the path to an Iranian nuclear weapon. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, who has the last word, repeatedly stressed these are un-Islamic.

To continue reading: The Art Of Breaking A Deal

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Let’s (Not) Make a Deal, by Dr. D

Posted on May 10, 2018 | Leave a comment

Obama touted his pen and phone as instruments of his rule. However, man of his end runs around normal procedure and the Constitution can be undone with a pen or a phone, and Trump just undid Obama’s non-treaty Iran nuclear deal. From Dr. D. at theautomaticearth.com:

I know the U.S. hasn’t followed the law in 100 years, but let’s review the Iran Deal. A “Deal” with a foreign nation is supposed to be, for 200 years has been, and legally must be, a “Treaty”. Treaties under U.S. law are unique, as they are NOT to be brokered by the Congress and are a point of contention if Congressmen get involved, as you can imagine special deals and/or information leaks could damage the negotiating position.

This is one of the few things Congress doesn’t do. However, the deal, brokered by the President, is presented to the Senate and only the Senate, which is supposed to be the older, more stable house, and once upon a time when Americans were adults and the Senate was chosen by the State governments, this was true. Even with a Democratic election of Senators representing the people and not the States, (which is what the House is supposed to be) it’s the best we have.

So when Obama arranged the Iran “Deal”, he knew and did so against 220 years of history exclusively BECAUSE he knew the Senate would never approve an honest-to-God, legal “Treaty.” Worse, it was part of the reason the “Deal” was effectively secret, not overseen by anyone, and even John Kerry when asked what was in it said, “I don’t know.” You don’t know??? You’re the Secretary of State presumably brokering the deal. Who’s above you in the food chain that you’re not allowed to know? That was an interesting disclosure that the media – of course – never followed up on.

He also said, as the deal was never signed, it was “not legally binding.” Okay, yes, if the Senate does not approve it, making it therefore a “Treaty”, then it’s just a gentleman’s handshake verbal agreement and not binding. So…Iran therefore did NOT agree to stop weapons development, and certainly as proven did not agree to continue to use the U.S. petrodollar.

On the other hand, Obama DID send pallets of cash on 3 jumbo jets, and the U.S. prisoners were not released until those planes touched down. So Iran can legally reverse their weapons development, while you’re not going to get that cash back. That sounds like a terrible, terrible deal, a no-deal deal no one read and no one signed. And they’re upset this is cancelled? Why? What’s in it? Can we finally know now? Nope.

To continue reading: Let’s (Not) Make a Deal

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The Donald’s Done – The Deep State Wins Its War On America First, by David Stockman

Posted on May 10, 2018 | 1 comment

Not for the first time, David Stockman writes off the Trump presidency. However, his hopes seem to spring eternal, so we can probably look for him to say something positive about Trump before too long. From David Stockman via antiwar.com:

The Donald’s action to ash-can the Iranian nuclear deal marks the War Party’s complete and baleful triumph. There is now nothing much left of America First.

Trump’s reckless, unwarranted and utterly irrational action will pull Washington ever deeper into an incendiary middle eastern vortex of political and religious conflict that has absolutely nothing to do with the safety and security of the America people.

To the contrary, picking a fight with Tehran is an exercise in unprovoked Imperial aggression. The Iranian regime has no means to attack America militarily and has never threatened to do so. Nor has it invaded any other country in the region where it was not invited by a sovereign government host.

Even Iran’s minor skirmishes with American forces in recent years have been owing to the happenstance of Washington’s far-flung imperial ventures.

For example, Washington destroyed Saddam’s Sunni/secular government in Iraq and installed a Shiite regime in Baghdad, thereby leaving the Sunni lands of western Iraq in chaos. Only then did Baghdad invite their shiite co-religionists from Iran to help excise the scourge of ISIS that formed from the remnants of Saddam’s army and government.

Likewise, Washington and its allies sent thousands of jihadist warriors and billions of aid and supplies into Syria to topple its dully elected government. Only then did the Alawite (Shiite) Assad regime invite help from its confessional compatriots in Tehran.

And you can’t find any more ludicrous example of the cat calling the kettle black than the Donald’s claim that Iran is a terrorist state because it is aligned with the Shiite population of Lebanon represented by Hezbollah.

For crying out loud. The War Party pretends Washington has turned much of the middle east into rubble and barbarism in order to spread democracy – whether they wanted it or not, and whether they were ready for it or not.

But Lebanon is a serviceable democracy and last weekend Hezbollah and its allies – including certain Sunni factions – won an overwhelming election victory. They now control a clear majority in its legislature, where Hezbollah will have the power to name a new Prime Minister (a Sunni) and Speaker of the Parliament (a Shiite) – both of whom will be pledged to work with the country’s Christian president.

That particular outcome of democracy the War Party can’t abide. But it fairly violates the english language itself to call it state sponsored terrorism.

To continue reading: The Donald’s Done – The Deep State Wins Its War On America First

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The Meaning of Verification, by Ted Snider

Posted on May 9, 2018 | 1 comment

The International Atomic Energy Agency has certified 11 times that Iran is in compliance with the Nuclear Agreement. Now that the US has pulled out of the agreement, Iran can kick out the inspectors and we won’t have that source of information on what Iran is doing. From Ted Snider at antiwar.org:

As North Korea begins to open up to the world, what must they be hearing?

Two of the loudest stories concern Donald Trump’s reactions to countries accused of having active weapons of mass destruction programs. Trump bombed Syria for using chemical weapons, and he has now officially pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear agreement with Iran.

But the first thing that needs to be said in any discussion of Syria’s chemical weapons or Iran’s nuclear weapons is the one thing that is seldom said: Syria has no chemical weapons and Iran has no nuclear ones. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) verified Syria to be chemical free, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has verified Iran’s consistent and continued compliance with the JCPOA. To the best of anyone’s knowledge, Syria has no chemicals and Iran has no nukes: that’s what verification means.

Syria

On September 14, 2013 the United States and Russia finalized a Russian brokered agreement on the removal and destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons. On January 4, 2016, the OPCW declared the completion of the destruction of all chemical weapons in Syria.

Nonetheless, on April 14, Trump ordered the bombing of Syria because of a claimed chemical attack in Douma, near Damascus. Only days before the missile strikes, Defense Secretary James Mattis said that the U.S lacked the intelligence that Assad was responsible for the alleged chemical weapons attack. Mattis admitted that the US was “still assessing the intelligence… We’re still working on it.”

Days after, however, the US bombed three particular buildings that they claimed housed specific chemicals and chemical production equipment. That’s very precise, specific intelligence. Armed with that proof, why would the US rush to bomb Syria? Why not take that intelligence to U.N. inspectors? Why not hand it over to the OPCW? Why not reveal the illegal Syrian clandestine chemical weapons program to the world?

Russian chemical weapons specialists who were on site found no trace of chemical weapon use. Neither did Red Crescent doctors who treated people. The OPCW inspectors might quickly have answered the question, but their access to the site was blocked by the United Nations department of Safety and Security.

To continue reading: The Meaning of Verification

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Trump Pulls Out of Iran Deal – U.S. Determined to Become a Rogue State, by Michael Krieger

Posted on May 8, 2018 | 2 comments

SLL generally ruminates over Trump moves for a few days before commenting. Here’s an immediate and decidedly negative view of Trump’s decision to pull out of the Iran Nuclear Deal. From Michael Krieger at libertyblitzkrieg.com:

Let me cut to the chase. Every single world leader knows Trump’s full of shit. Even more importantly, the citizens of their nations also know it. Everyone with a functioning brain understands that pulling out of the Iran deal has nothing to do with terrorism, nuclear bombs or any other fairytale propagated by U.S. neocons. This is simply about the existence of a non-U.S. client state in a key strategic region sitting on massive oil reserves. It’s about empire — global games of power and money fueled by a desperate attempt to hold on to a unipolar world where the U.S. bosses everyone around.

A global empire will keep pushing and pushing until something snaps. The leaders of empire become convinced of their invincibility right before the end, and the U.S. is no different. Given the rise of China economically and militarily, as well as Russia exerting its influence in Syria, the writing’s already on the wall as far as where the world’s headed. Towards a multi-polar planet in which the U.S. will still have influence, but far less than it’s enjoyed since WW2. While shifts are already well underway beneath the radar, American leadership refuses to admit it. A serious decline of U.S. global power as a result of major mistakes related to Iran will begin to play out publicly from here.

It’s important to understand what a massive mistake pulling out of the Iran deal is. Irrespective of your opinion on its merits, it’s a deal agreed to by all major global powers. The U.S., Iran, France, Britain, Germany, China and Russia signed it. There’s only one country in that wants to scrap it (and did so today), the U.S. This is no small event and the long-term repercussions are enormous. What Trump just did, in no uncertain terms, is tell the entire world that no deal signed with the U.S. means anything. Why even bother negotiating with the U.S. if agreements can just be canceled unilaterally with no evidence of wrongdoing?

To continue reading: Trump Pulls Out of Iran Deal – U.S. Determined to Become a Rogue State

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