Historic US-Iran nuclear deal could be taking shape

[Valin]

AP:

GEORGE JAHN and BRADLEY KLAPPER

Feb. 23 2015

 

GENEVA (AP) — Edging toward a historic compromise, the U.S. and Iran reported progress Monday on a deal that would clamp down on Tehran's nuclear activities for at least 10 years but then slowly ease restrictions on programs that could be used to make atomic arms.

 

Officials said there were still obstacles to overcome before a March 31 deadline, and any deal will face harsh opposition in both countries. It also would be sure to further strain already-tense U.S. relations with Israel, whose leaders oppose any agreement that doesn't end Iran's nuclear ambitions.

 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to strongly criticize the deal in an address before Congress next week.

 

* Still, a comprehensive pact could ease 35 years of U.S-Iranian enmity — and seems within reach for the first time in more than a decade of negotiations.

 

(Snip)

 

* Money Quote!

 

H/T Power Line

[Valin]

Now we know who to believe on Iran

The Obama administration claimed Israel was misrepresenting its deal with the ayatollahs. Reports from Geneva indicate Israel’s concerns were all too accurate
David Horovitz

February 23, 2015

 

In an op-ed on February 9, I suggested that Israel’s opposition leader, Isaac Herzog, should stand alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before Congress on March 3, to underline “their common conviction that the regime in Tehran cannot be appeased and must be faced down.”

On Monday evening, as details of the looming US-led deal with Iran emerged from Geneva, Israel’s most respected Middle East affairs analyst, Channel 2 commentator Ehud Ya’ari, made precisely the same suggestion. So problematic are the reported terms of the deal, Ya’ari indicated, that Israel’s two leading contenders in the March 17 elections, Netanyahu and Herzog, need to put aside their differences and make plain to US legislators that the need to thwart such an accord crosses party lines in Israel and stands as a consensual imperative.

After anonymous sources in Jerusalem leaked to Israeli reporters in recent weeks the ostensible terms of the deal being hammered out, various spokespeople for the Obama administration contended that the Netanyahu government was misrepresenting the specifics for narrow political ends. They sneered that Israel didn’t actually know what the terms were. And they made the acknowledgement — the astounding acknowledgement for a United States whose key regional ally is directly and relentlessly threatened with destruction by Iran — that the Obama administration is consequently no longer sharing with Jerusalem all sensitive details of the Iran talks.

(Snip)

 

[clearvision]

So they want to get a deal while the getting is good. Just punt it down the road.

[Valin]

So they want to get a deal while the getting is good. Just punt it down the road.

 

 

Pretty much

[Valin]

The Worst Possible Outcome[/u]

Feb 23 2025

 

The U.S. and Iran are closing in on a nuclear agreement that would allow Iran a timeline for developing a nuclear weapon. According to the AP:

 

(Snip)

 

If this is true, it would be a template for setting off the biggest nuclear arms race ever. Given that the deal drops all barriers to the Iranian nuke program, the Saudis and others in the region are likely to step up their preparations. The Saudis in particular, as the wealthiest Sunni power, are well-positioned to tap the nuclear know-how of impoverished, Sunni Pakistan. And it’s hard to see the Turks abstaining from a regional nuclear arms race.

 

As Walter Russell Mead noted last week, “a process that began with the goal of eliminating Iran’s potential to produce nuclear weapons has evolved into a plan to tolerate and restrict that capability.” It is quite possible that the most important foreign policy legacy of Barack Obama, who began his presidency by winning the Nobel Peace Prize for his nuclear non-proliferation efforts, will be the death of non-proliferation.