Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Now I am starting to hear a little bit of skepticism on the "news" channels.
As Candy Crowley on CNN just said, this agreement isn't worth the paper it's printed on unless Iran actually starts dismantling its centrifuges and other machinery.
I would add that they must do that... AND allow inspectors from the major countries involved, free access to ALL areas of Iran where such research and development can be done, for YEARS.
If Iran actually does that (not just promises to do that), then it will the first indication that they are actually serious about reducing their capability to develop a nuclear bomb.
OTOH, if Iran does NOT do that, then that tells us all we need to know about how "serioous" they are: namely, they aren't serious about it at all.
So far we have no reason to believe they will keep their word.
I hope subsequent events over the next months and years, changes that.
If Iran doesn't keep its agreement than the trade sanctions stay and it can't sell its oil. There are reasons for both sides to make and keep this agreement.
Iran, with or without nukes, is not a threat to the US.
I don't that's true. For one thing, it will cause a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia will get them, and imagine what happens if the Saud family falls. When people are willing to kill themselves and are proud of their children for being suicide bombers, what's to stop them from lobbing nukes at Israel? Israel's nukes will not be a deterrent in that situation. I think it would be disastrous.
A very good reading of this Iranian deal from Charles Krauthammer. I know some will dismiss it because it's from him, but read it because it's not just him saying these things. Our economic sanctions were really having an effect on Iran's economy, but just at the point where we had the most leverage, we lifted the sanctions.
A president desperate to change the subject and a secretary of state desperate to make a name for himself are reportedly on the verge of an “interim”
nuclear agreement with Iran. France called it a “sucker’s deal.” France was being charitable.
The only reason Iran has come to the table after a decade of contemptuous stonewalling is that economic sanctions have cut so deeply — Iran’s currency has collapsed, inflation is rampant — that the regime fears a threat to its very survival.
Nothing else could move it to negotiate. Regime survival is the only thing the mullahs value above nuclear weapons. And yet precisely at the point of
maximum leverage, President Obama is offering relief in a deal that is absurdly asymmetric: The West would weaken sanctions in exchange for cosmetic changes that do absolutely nothing to weaken Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.
Don’t worry, we are assured. This is only an interim six-month agreement to “build confidence” until we reach a final one. But this makes no sense. If at
this point of maximum economic pressure we can’t get Iran to accept a final deal that shuts down its nuclear program, how in God’s name do we expect to get such a deal when we have radically reduced that pressure?
A bizarre negotiating tactic. And the content of the deal is even worse.
It’s a rescue package for the mullahs.
It widens permissible trade in oil, gold, and auto parts. It releases frozen Iranian assets, increasing Iran’s foreign-exchange reserves by 25 percent while
doubling its fully accessible foreign-exchange reserves. Such a massive infusion of cash would be a godsend for its staggering economy, lowering inflation,
reducing shortages, and halting the country’s growing demoralization. The prospective deal is already changing economic expectations. Foreign oil and
other interests are reportedly preparing to reopen negotiations for a resumption of trade in anticipation of the full lifting of sanctions.
And for what? You’d offer such relief in return for Iran’s giving up its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Isn’t that what the entire exercise is about?
And yet this deal does nothing of the sort. Nothing. It leaves Iran’s nuclear infrastructure intact. Iran keeps every one of its 19,000 centrifuges — yes,
19,000 — including 3,000 second-generation machines that produce enriched uranium at five times the rate of older models.
Not a single centrifuge is dismantled. Not a single facility that manufactures centrifuges is touched. In Syria, the first thing the weapons inspectors did was to destroy the machines that make the chemical weapons. Then they went after the stockpiles. It has to be that way. Otherwise, the whole
operation is an exercise in futility. Take away just the chemical agents, and the weapons-making facilities can replace them at will.
Yet that’s exactly what we’re doing with Iran. The deal would deactivate its 20 percent enriched uranium, which, leaving aside the fact that deactivation is
chemically reversible, is quickly replaceable because Iran retains its 3.5 percent uranium, which can be enriched to 20 percent in less than a month.
Result: Sanctions relief that leaves Iran’s nuclear infrastructure untouched, including — and this is where the French gagged — the plutonium facility at
Arak, a defiant alternative path to a nuclear weapon.
The point is blindingly simple. Unless you dismantle the centrifuges and prevent the manufacture of new ones, Iran will be perpetually just a few months
away from going nuclear. This agreement, which is now reportedly being drafted to allow Iran to interpret it as granting the “right” to enrich uranium,
constitutes the West legitimizing Iran’s status as a threshold nuclear state.
Don’t worry, we are assured. The sanctions relief is reversible. Nonsense. It was extraordinarily difficult to cobble together the current sanctions. It took
endless years of overcoming Russian, Chinese, and Indian recalcitrance, together with foot-dragging from Europeans making a pretty penny from Iran.
Once the relaxation begins, how do you reverse it? How do you reapply sanctions? There is absolutely no appetite for this among our allies. And adding
back old sanctions will be denounced as a provocation that would drive Iran to a nuclear breakout — exactly as Obama is today denouncing congressional moves to increase sanctions as a deal-breaking provocation that might lead Iran to break off talks.
The mullahs are eager for this interim agreement with its immediate yield of political and economic relief. Once they get it, we will have removed their one incentive to conclude the only agreement that is worth anything to us — a verifiable giving up of their nuclear program.
They are playing us for saps........they will still be building the bomb....they keep pulling us to the peace meetings to buy more time........What have they ever done that justifies our trusting them?
Islam and jihad
8) The principle of al-Taqiyya
[LEFT][SIZE=2]"Speaking is a means to achieve objectives. If a praiseworthy aim is attainable through both telling the truth and lying, it is unlawful to accomplish through lying because there is no need for it. When it is possible to achieve such an aim by lying but not telling the truth, it is permissible to lie if attaining the goal is permissible.[/SIZE][SIZE=2]..and obligatory to lie if the goal is obligatory[/SIZE][SIZE=2]."[/SIZE][/LEFT]
[RIGHT][SIZE=2]-- Abu Hammid Ghazali[/SIZE]
[/RIGHT]
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
