Discussion for article #239565
smells funny
As a supporter of the deal, this is very disappointing. Anything that can be criticized needs to be up front and not hidden or secret, only to come out later as these things invariably do. I would say this agreement is unacceptable and makes an imperfect deal even shakier.
To have the GOP winning the PR war is frustrating. To have this going on starts to make me question the competence of our negotiators. Damn.
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Of course. This is part of the âface savingâ stuff that is necessary anytime you make a deal like this. The Iranian officials have to have something to show they stood firmâŚand held the Great Satan at bay. So they get to inspect a site the IAEA and everyone else agrees went dead a decade ago.
You have to have these things. The Iranian officials, certainly the Ayatollah, arenât going to roll over and let their citizens see that. They have to be given something they can flout no matter how irrelevant ( their state run media will claim this nothing a huge victory over Western oppression ) or they DO NOT do the deal.
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If you just take the media presentation of this you are going to be âquestioning the competence of our negotiatorsâ because thatâs what your being conditioned to do. Read the entire bit above. In it youâll see the IAEA admits the site is no longer active. Nor can it be made so.
Have a look:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iran/images/dg-parchin-13aug04_0002-new.jpg
Its remote. Read: a set up for a bombing with little risk of collateral innocent death. That no longer works. Thatâs why the ditched the joint years ago. It can be targeted for annihilation without risk. Thatâs why you build this kind of crap where destroying it will yield a massive propaganda opportunity for Iranâs nuclear wannabes.
The concern in all this âdealâ stuff is Iran going to be able to hide further development of a bomb. You sure as shit cannot to that at Parchin. Is Iran going to cheat and can they find a way? Who knows but they cannot cheat at a declared site that is easily monitored by satellite.
Yup theres going to be a big to do about this. But itâs really nothing.
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My read on this side agreement to let the Iranians take the lead in âinvestigatingâ this inactive and obsolete facility is that it allows the Iranians to save face by continuing to deny past intentions of developing nuclear weapons, and that this face-saving is the trade-off for agreeing to the extremely tough inspection regime for possible current or future sites (the main agreement).
Opponents of the deal, however, will simply conflate this side deal with the main agreement and repeat over and over that weâre allowing the Iranians to inspect themselves. And they will probably get quite a bit of traction with their lies. But I doubt it will be enough to get them to the two-thirds vote theyâd need to kill the deal. Still, with the revelation of this side deal, I would put those odds at least a bit higher today than I would have yesterday.
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This has nothing to do with our negotiators or the parties to the treaty under discussion. Not a part of it. This has nothing to do with how inspections get done under the deal or who does them. Nothing. Zero. Zip.
Instead, itâs a draft of a document that a guy who totally promises that itâs exactly the same as the one in place take my word on it and why would I lie but donât quote me was implemented under the existing nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Totally separate treaty, different regime.
Itâs a piece of deflection leaked by the very people youâre talking about. But, of course, you wouldnât know that from the story.
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Not a âside deal.â Itâs a technical agreement Iran negotiated with the IAEA under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The IAEA is not a party to the five party agreement.
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The document seen by the AP is a draft that one official familiar with its contents said doesnât differ substantially from the final version. He demanded anonymity because he isnât authorized to discuss the issue.
Christ. They never learn. Even after story after story after storyâJudy Miller, the NYTâs botched reporting on Hillaryâs email, the repeated instances where Issa leaked excerpts of testimony only to have it turn out the it was deceptively edited just for exampleâwhere they got burned by trusting a single sourceâs word, theyâre still doing it.
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Thanks for the correction. I still think thatâs the basic bargain: Iran can keep claiming it never intended to build a nuclear weapon, and in return they subject themselves to a very tough inspection regime going forward, one that guarantees that even if they did/do intend to do so, they wonât be able to do so undetected. And if that is the bargain, writ large, then Iâm fine with it.
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Now the official mouthpiece of AIPAC (who oppose the deal) the VIENNA BUREAU of A.P. say that essentially: âA guy I know says a guy he knows got a glance at a âsecrectâ UN document (somehow) and itâs TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE I TELL YOU!!! The NazâŚoops, I mean IRANIANS will be able to do their OWN INSPECTIONS.â
Ignoring the fact that it is after all THEIR SITE so yeah, they can do their own inspections. Nowhere does it say they do it IN PLACE of the UN inspectors.
Also, no dates on the âdocumentâ. When was this âdealâ written? 10 years ago? 10 days ago?
They are getting DESPERATE to kill the deal and are now just making shit up to try to derail it.
That tells me itâs a very, very good deal for the international arms dealers in Vienna to go to this length to try to stop it. Between them and the US/UK/Saudi/Kuwaiti Oil Companies terrified of the effect on the Price of OIL collapsing due to the Iranian oil coming on the market, to the Fasicst/Orthodox Israelis scared of losing their âBoogyman du jourâ. It is getting more an more apparent that they want WAR for profits sake.
To be fair, thereâs nothing the international arms dealers would love more than for the embargoes against Iran to be lifted and the Iranians given back their money in a big python lump. Thatâs the real reason the Israelis are freaking out. Indeed, it seems like as far as they were concerned, they already have the bomb so the worst case strategic scenario for them was mutual assured destruction rather than the implicit threat of destruction by a monopolist, a thing the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. managed to survive quite handily. Instead, all the bomb fear was always about justifying the imposition of crippling economic sanctions in a bid to cripple Iranâs economic and conventional military power for a reason that would never be resolved because they could always get Bush and Cheney to keep moving the goal posts.
And then here comes Obama and he goes and acts like the ostensible purpose of the sanctions is the real purpose and to negotiate in good faith on that basis. anti-Semite! .
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all the bomb fear was always about justifying the imposition of crippling economic sanctions in a bid to cripple Iranâs economic and conventional military power for a reason that would never be resolved because they could always get Bush and Cheney to keep moving the goal posts.
And then here comes Obama and he goes and acts like the ostensible purpose of the sanctions is the real purpose and to negotiate in good faith on that basis.
Exactly.
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Bingo. Note there is zero links to the actual document, and the carefully worded article admits it is an unsigned document. Anyone with a word processor and a printer can make as many of those as they want.
This has a stovepiped bullshit vibe to it.
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Exactly. This is what I have been saying for months. Well stated.
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Iranian hard-liners hate the 5 party agreement. So does Netanyahu. Sounds good to me!
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ShouldnâtâŚno matter what position you hold. If youâre a âget tough on Iranâ type you should love this deal and hope Iran violates it. Then you get your sanctions back ( UN sanctions that isâŚthe real ones ) and you can push a military solution.
If youâre for a better angle at fighting ISIS and the like you should be happy with the deal as itâs a detente with IranâŚthe country you NEED to win a fight with any of the Sunni insurgencies. If youâre just for peaceâŚthe deal gives you that.
But the Deal is a must do. May not work but you must try. You give Iran a shot at being a better member of the world community. They take it or they leave it. You got both angles covered anyway.
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A better question is whether the American public has learned its lesson of believing questionable and/or deliberately deceptive âintelligenceâ leaks to aiding and abetting media sources.
Thank you for this very important bit of information. There is so much BS surrounding this deal itâs hard to wade through it all, and this helps
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Iâm old and cynical, but Iâm going to guess ânoâ.