69 thoughts on “The Iran “Deal””

  1. Not sure why the party that promotes gay rights, women’s rights and minority rights deals with a regime that despises them. I’m also not sure why the party that hates Christian fanaticism is okay with Muslim fanaticism. But let me take a guess: the left hates America and wants to see its influence diminish. Those who say they want a deal with Iran but don’t want Iran to have nukes are liars.

    1. The progressive position has always been that Iran deserves to have nuclear weapons just as much as anyone else and that the USA has zero right to interfere. But no one asks Obama if he believe his party’s dogma.

      The media likes to portray Obama as having no motivation or guiding ideology and that certainly isn’t true. It would be nice if there was even minimal examination of the positions held by Obama and the militant activist/academic/socialist wing from which he sprung forth.

      It isn’t some sort of mystery, Obama believe the same crap the people rioting in the streets think.

      1. The progressive position has always been that Iran deserves to have nuclear weapons just as much as anyone else and that the USA has zero right to interfere.

        Then why did the Obama administration bother to organize multi-lateral sanctions as a lever to get Iran to halt its nuclear program and agree to intrusive inspections?

        It isn’t some sort of mystery, Obama believe the same crap the people rioting in the streets think.

        It would be a mystery if Obama believed those things, and yet acted the way he acts. It’s less of a mystery if you consider the possibility that Obama’s actions might actually reflect his beliefs.

        1. His actions clearly reflect his beliefs. He hates the West. He hates America and he hates American hegemony. He loves Islam.

          1. His actions in this case are backed by John Kerry, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, among others. Do they hate America and the West too? Do they love Islam (presumably just Shia Islam; the Sunnis hate this deal)?

        2. “Then why did the Obama administration bother to organize multi-lateral sanctions ”

          Sanctions predated Obama and he has spent most of his time trying to find ways to get Iran off them without Iran giving up anything in return. Obama’s rhetoric been theatre for domestic political consumption, his useful idiots eat this stuff up. His actions tell a different tale.

          “It’s less of a mystery if you consider the possibility that Obama’s actions might actually reflect his beliefs.”

          I am quite certain that giving Iran nuclear weapons as well as other gifts in the region is a reflection of Obama’s beliefs.

          You can’t possibly think that Obama is a progressive but doesn’t hold the same beliefs as other progressives. I can’t wait for your, “Obama isn’t really a progressive defense.” The mantle of progressive is something that can be put on or taken off depending on when lies need to be told about Obama’s ideology.

          1. I am quite certain that giving Iran nuclear weapons

            You don’t “give Iran nuclear weapons” by forcing them to forfeit most of their nuclear development infrastructure, and that’s what this deal does. All the other countries with sanctions against Iran — the UK, France, Germany, China, Russia — would have accepted a more lenient deal.

            You can’t possibly think that Obama is a progressive but doesn’t hold the same beliefs as other progressives.

            Maybe there are progressives who want Iran to have nuclear weapons, but I don’t know any, and Obama isn’t one.

          2. “You don’t “give Iran nuclear weapons” by forcing them to forfeit most of their nuclear development infrastructure, and that’s what this deal does. ”

            Hahaha you are such a fool. Haven’t you learned, yet that anything Obama puts on paper or says has the life span of a fruit fly?

            The Iranians will block inspectors , just like Saddam did- in fact there is no any time any where inspections in this deal.

            You think the Snap backs would actually occur?

            They will not.
            You are so easily duped

          3. ” to forfeit most ”

            But not all because this isn’t about preventing Iran from getting nukes but rather allowing Obama and his useful idiots to pretend Iran isn’t working toward nukes when in reality they are and we are going along with it.

            “Maybe there are progressives who want Iran to have nuclear weapons, but I don’t know any,”

            Seriously? Oh wait I forgot the Clinton parsing of the language. Sure, there are people who don’t think Iran should have nuclear weapons but that comes with a lot of caveats about how Iran deserves nuclear weapons as much as anyone else.

          4. Where are they forfeiting anything?

            They are giving up 90+% of their enriched uranium and most of their centrifuges, among other things.

            The Iranians will block inspectors , just like Saddam did- in fact there is no any time any where inspections in this deal.

            The inspections are more intrusive than any the IAEA has carried out anywhere. They’re a lot better than what we would have without a deal, which is no inspections at all.

  2. Not sure why the party that promotes gay rights, women’s rights and minority rights deals with a regime that despises them.

    Simple: because it’s better for the U.S. than the alternative. Richard Nixon was no fan of communism, but he dealt with Mao because it was good for the U.S. Ronald Reagan was no fan of communism, but he dealt with Gorbachev because it was good for the U.S. Every U.S. president in the last 80 years has dealt with Saudi Arabia, despite that country’s views on gay rights, women’s rights, minority rights, religious freedom, Israel, etc. If we refused to deal with any country that didn’t echo our values and priorities, we’d be worse off.

    Those who say they want a deal with Iran but don’t want Iran to have nukes are liars.

    Huh? Without a deal Iran went from zero to 6,000 centrifuges. They were on their way to having nukes until the prospect of a deal gave them an incentive to stop.

    1. Ah, so Jim brings up Realpolitik. Nice fudge there. What happened to your vaunted, holy stance on Human Rights? Where did it go? I’ll tell you: you never were a believer in Human Rights.

      And why don’t you side with Israel? For the same reason: you’re lying.

      1. Refusing to negotiate with human rights abusers does not necessarily advance either U.S. interests or human rights.

        1. But that is exactly what the left does with Israel with regards to Palestine. And on the domestic side, that is why you refuse to engage cooperatively with religious conservatives on gay marriage, abortifacients, etc.

          You are, as usual, a hypocrite.

    2. ” If we refused to deal ”

      What is the deal? Are you operating under the assumption that this deal prevents Iran from working on nuclear weapons? This “deal” is designed to let Iran get nuclear weapons without interference from the USA, the UN, or anyone else. The deal ties our hands, not Iran’s.

      And one other thing. You remember how the Iraq war started? A decade of shenanigans, like what this “deal” contains, ended in us going to war. This agreement only insures future conflict while limiting our ability to respond to it, classic Obama.

      Iran is going to continue working on nuclear weapons, Obama and the progressives are ok with that.

      1. This “deal” is designed to let Iran get nuclear weapons without interference from the USA, the UN, or anyone else.

        Before the negotiations there were no limits and no inspections. With the deal there will be limits and inspections. That’s “interference”.

        You remember how the Iraq war started?

        I do — our president called inspectors home and ordered an unnecessary invasion.

        1. “Before the negotiations there were no limits and no inspections. With the deal there will be limits and inspections. That’s “interference”.”

          But there was huge amounts of time wasted..time where the facilities were inmproved, uranium stockpiled and, worst of all…

          time lost where harsher sanctions could have been applied in order to get us a better deal.

          You talk out of two sides of your face. You laud the sanction and claim Obama set them (he did not), and yet you are happy to give away everything that harder sanctions could have won.

          You don’t care about the potential of millions of nuclear deaths.

          you care about defending Obama.

          1. time where the facilities were inmproved, uranium stockpiled

            And now those facilities will be emptied of most of their equipment, and those stockpiles handed over. Iran will be further from a bomb than when the negotiations started — we’ve bought time, not wasted it.

            time lost where harsher sanctions could have been applied

            There’s no point in harsher unilateral sanctions — the Iranians would just trade with Europe, China and Russia. Sanctions are only effective when they’re multilateral, and Europe, China and Russia weren’t going to enforce sanctions unless we were negotiating. It’s amazing that Obama kept the other parties together for this long, and that Kerry got China and Russia to agree to veto-proof snapback sanctions.

        2. “Before the negotiations there were no limits and no inspections.With the deal there will be limits and inspections. That’s “interference”.”

          Notice that no where in your statement are the words, “Iran is prevented from getting nuclear weapons.” At best, you are claiming we can interfere with them via inspections, not stop them.

          A deal that doesn’t stop Iran from getting nukes only insures that they get them. You know it. Obama knows it. Iran knows it.

          “I do — our president called inspectors home and ordered an unnecessary invasion.”

          Oh so the inspections were working out well then? When you make agreements at the end of a war, it is very possible for war to start again when you don’t live up to those agreements. You do know that the Iraq War was the culmination of the work of 3 different Presidents right? It didn’t just spring up overnight and now we have similar conditions for Iran.

          1. Jim Bleats:

            “I do — our president called inspectors home and ordered an unnecessary invasion.”

            And do you know WHY they were called home? Because Saddam refused them access.

            Which is what will happen here.

          2. And do you know WHY they were called home? Because Saddam refused them access.

            No. In March, 2003 the inspectors reported “accelerated cooperation” from the Iraqis, and stated that “it will not take years, nor weeks, but months” to verify Iraq’s disarmament. They were called home because the invasion was scheduled to begin that month.

          3. Hans Blix came in around 2002, after the previous inspectors were denied access. The only reason Blix got in was because Congress had already voted once in the positive towards going to war with Iraq. Revisionist history can be attempted to salvage Hillary Clinton’s vote for the Iraq War, but Jim will be known as the liar on this blog for trying to rewrite that history.

          4. Hillary Clinton was wrong to vote for the war. Bush was wrong to want the war in the first place.

    3. “Huh? Without a deal Iran went from zero to 6,000 centrifuges. ”

      And with a deal they keep on enriching uranium. Was the deal supposed to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons, cause if so, it is a failure.

      1. They will give up most of their centrifuges, and submit to intrusive inspections. The deal makes it much harder for them to build a nuke than it would be otherwise. Arguing against the deal is either arguing for war, or for letting Iran pursue nuclear weapons with no inspections or limitations whatsoever.

          1. Jim is worse than naive, Rand.

            He’s a fool.

            At least Obama and Kerry know that the deal is hollow and nothing more than a facade.

          2. Jim is neither naive or a fool, he knows exactly what this deal is even if he can’t admit it here.

        1. “They will give up most of their centrifuges”

          So? They have others and are building more. Those centrifuges will continue spinning. This deal insures that.

          “The deal makes it much harder for them to build a nuke than it would be otherwise”

          Otherwise? What limited set of options will you allow people to choose from? But once again, you say make harder, not stop. Stopping Iran from getting nukes was the goal but those goal posts had to be moved ’cause our Diplomat in Chief couldn’t do the one thing he claims to be a badass at, negotiate.

          “Arguing against the deal is either arguing for war, or for letting Iran pursue nuclear weapons with no inspections or limitations whatsoever.”

          Oh, here are the BS limited choices. There are more options than you give. There were other diplomatic paths that could have been taken. And as far as war goes, nonproliferation is dead and this craptastic deal means that decades of conflict will follow.

          Not accepting this deal, didn’t have to mean we march off to war. War was a possibility and it still is, probably an even greater risk of war now.

          1. They aren’t allowed to build more centrifuges for a number of years.

            Stopping Iran from getting nukes was the goal

            You want a guarantee? There’s no such thing.

            There were other diplomatic paths that could have been taken.

            Wishful thinking isn’t an alternative. This deal is better than no deal, which is the other option on the table today. In the worst case scenario we end up eventually going to war to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities, and thanks to the inspections mandated by this deal we’ll have a much better idea what we need to destroy.

    4. I was wrong; they went from zero to 20,000 centrifuges. The deal gets them back down to 6,000, of the oldest and least efficient design.

  3. US foreign policy now includes negotiating ransom payments with hostage takers, so dealing with Iran is totally consistent.

  4. As Roger Simon commented, “Somewhere Frank Marshall Davis is smiling.” (I would guess that the “somewhere” is the circle of Hell reserved for Commies.) I think Uncle Frank has been smiling ever since Barry took office.

  5. Huh? Without a deal Iran went from zero to 6,000 centrifuges. They were on their way to having nukes until the prospect of a deal gave them an incentive to stop.

    Kind of like North Korea giving up nukes. Nice try.

  6. Given that the people who like the deal are pretty much the same people who are wrong about almost everything else, I guess we should say goodbye to Israel while we can.

    So long, Schlomo!

    1. Given that the people who oppose the deal are pretty much the people who thought invading Iraq would turn out great, we should be glad that they aren’t currently in power.

      1. Ah, this is your fall back argument. I’m going to pout and whine about Iraq, It shows the futility of your arguments.

        No, there are many who oppose this deal who didn’t want to invade Iraq.

        1. Iraq was invaded after violating about a dozen UN Security Council resolutions regarding development of weapons, just like this Iran deal is meant to prevent. And if Iran decides to follow Iraq, as they have already suggested, how many UN resolutions will get passed while Regressives still claim this is better than invading Iran?

          Also note that Jim is lying about Iran stopping the centrifuges because they have not done so. In fact, they are allowed to keep spinning them. They only have to “verify” through inspections that will take 24 days prior to occurring, that they only made so much material from the centrifuges.

          1. that they only made so much material from the centrifuge

            Which they were caught doing under the -temporary- plan. Oh, not precisely caught under exact reading – but only because ‘the pile’ has to -end-up- a certain size on certain dates. Minor details like an interim pile that’s 10x that limit weren’t covered by our brilliant negotiators, and the “extra” 9x “went missing” before the official check-the-pile date -> compliance!

          1. I’ve tried, and come up empty. But you claim there are “many”, so it shouldn’t be too hard for you to name one or two.

      2. And, there are many who know things were going along pretty well in Iraq before Obama foolishly yanked the troops out. Everyone warned him that, if he did, it would produce a bloodbath. He didn’t care – he stated it explicitly. And, that is how we ended up where we are now.

        1. And, there are many who know things were going along pretty well in Iraq

          You’ve got to be joking. Thousands of U.S. dead, tens of thousands of Iraqi dead, millions of refugees, a trillion dollars wasted, and that’s “going along pretty well”?

          1. Compared to ISIS committing genocide, yes. We lost far more in WWII, but we finished the job there (after years of the Marshall Plan). Then again, I recall that many who supported the removal of Saddam were happy to leave a vacuum just like Barack and Hillary did in Iraq. But the Democrats in Congress howled that cutting off the head wouldn’t be sufficient, and this lead to the doctrine of nation building to gain Democrat support.

            Of course, nobody wants to talk about the UN graft in the Oil for Food sanctions, which is why so many of our elite opposed the overthrow of Saddam.

          2. Compared to ISIS committing genocide, yes.

            That wasn’t happening when we invaded, and it’s our invasion that cleared the way for ISIS to exist.

          3. Nonsense. ISIS is Obama’s creation.

            There was no ISIS until Obama gave American weapons to “moderate democratic resistance fighters” in Syria, who took our gifts, then promptly ran up the black flag and began slitting throats.

            Obama is the Dr. Frankenstein who loosed this monster on the world. But then Obama wanted to arm the Moslem Brotherhood regime in Egypt, also, so it’s no surprise.

      3. Iraq would be doing pretty good had Obama not screwed it up. Those are human beings over there and deserve better than what Obama gave them.

        But you are the one who cares about them despite abandoning them to genocide, crucifixions and other tortures.

        1. Those are human beings over there

          Our decision to invade killed tens of thousands of those human beings, and turned 4+ millions of them into refugees. Funny way to care about them.

          1. You are allowing Hezbollah and Hamas to murder thousands at least by caving to Iran. You will allow them to fester throughout the middle east.

            You’re such a compassionate, warm person.

          2. How, exactly, would you prevent Iran from supporting Hezbollah and Hamas? Isn’t a non-nuclear Iran backing Hezbollah and Hamas better than a nuclear Iran backing Hezbollah and Hamas?

  7. Obama and Kerry wanted this deal with Iran in the very worst way and that’s what they got. They see this as an important part of their legacy. I’m sure it will be, at least until Iran cheats and then they’ll blame it on the Republicans (or the Jews).

  8. Let’s get this straight. Deal or no deal, Iran is getting nukes. So why, Jim would ask, is the deal bad?

    Because it gives a lifeline to an odious regime, and delays its demise from a formerly restive population that much longer.

    1. So U.S. sanctions were going to bring down the mullahs, if we just give them more time? We’ve been trying that approach for decades.

      1. It would’ve helped if Obama had sided with the Green Revolution in 2009. But instead, you democrats sat back and did nothing, telling the world you liked the mullahs.

        Have you no heart for the Iranian people under oppression?

        1. telling the world you liked the mullahs

          When exactly did that happen?

          Have you no heart for the Iranian people under oppression?

          The menu of options is:

          1) Sanctions
          2) War
          3) Dropping sanctions in exchange for limits on nuclear programs

          None of these are great for the Iranian people, but #3 is the best on offer.

          1. Obama did not tell the world he “liked the mullahs” in 2009.

            You think that Obama should have done something to take advantage of the Green Revolution (call it X), and that by not doing X he expressed his affection for the mullahs. But those two options:

            1) Obama does X
            2) Obama likes the mullahs

            are not the only two possibilities; in fact it’s totally possible to dislike the mullahs and think that X is a bad idea.

            Your argument is an example of a false dichotomy;

      2. So, we should aid them? If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em?

        We had this debate years ago over the Soviet Union. People of your disposition insisted we couldn’t beat them, and had to “peacefully coexist”. Thank the Maker Reagan did not agree.

  9. How bout this deal is more than just nukes, it gives them a influx of cash to prop up the regime, modernize there military, they can slow down the development and buy themselves time 4-5 years, in 5 years They can buy a top of a line missile system from the Russians, Then they have no fear of a Israeli Airstrike destroying there nuke program, and the United states will have a significant harder time. They can modernize their armed forces and don’t have to be looking for spare parts for there F-14s. And in 10 years their be back to the current state of affairs, but will be flushed with cash, and Modernize air defense and military and think can purchase ballistic missile systems.

  10. GREAT! Omarxi has given the Mullahs the means to to continue their n-weapons program, albeit at a slower pace, but with no restrictions on Iran’s missile program. At the same time, Benedict Hussein O’Arnold has promised to give or sell both Israel and Saudi more weaponry to make them feel secure in the case of an Iranian nuclear breakout. Israel already has nuclear weapons, and SA has already threatened to buy them from Pakistan. Three countries, one with nuclear capability, two with the potential to get the bomb, and two of the three-Israel and SA-really hate the third country, Iran. This agreement, which is designed to preserve Peace In Our Time in the Middle East, has already raised the temperature in the room by who knows how many degrees with MORE weapons combined with increased fearfulness on the part of Israel and SA.

    Or is Omarxi counting on a Pax Sinica to keep the peace in the Persian Gulf once the USA has retreated back to its shores in order to finish the Building of Socialism in America. The whole situation makes me feel slightly nauseous.

  11. There is no other use for the centrifuges except for making nuclear weapons. Thus it would seem to me that any deal that does not involve scrapping centrifuges and outlawing new ones is an acknowledgement that Iran intends to continue trying to make nuclear weapons.
    We have certain inspection procedures that are supposed to stop them or slow them. Which would be welcome.
    But it sounds like a deal where we acknowledge that they want to fool us and will try to do so, and we will try to catch them when we can. Not designed to work very well.

    1. There is no other use for the centrifuges except for making nuclear weapons.

      Of course there is — enriching uranium for use in nuclear power plants.

      Thus it would seem to me that any deal that does not involve scrapping centrifuges and outlawing new ones

      This deal does involve scrapping most of their centrifuges, and outlawing new ones.

  12. The inspections are more intrusive than any the IAEA has carried out anywhere. They’re a lot better than what we would have without a deal, which is no inspections at all.

    Yeah, and North Korea was supposed to halt all weapon production. It didn’t happen.

    You and Obama are liars.

    1. Pretend inspections are effectively the same thing as no inspections at all. It’s why US police departments across this nation will raid a suspected lawbreaker rather than give them 24 days to comply with a warrant. Alas, the IAEA will have to wait 24 days before they’ll even be in a position to consider re-imposing sanctions to get an inspection.

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