The P5+1 Powers Are Pushing for a Newer, Weaker Nuke Deal with Iran

Although the war in the Ukraine monopolizes the world's attention as the cold winter of 2022 drags toward its end  on March 21, what seems to be the quiet push towards a new and worse Nuclear Deal with Iran is now going on as most of the world is distracted by the war.

Me'ir ben Shabbat, former head of Israel's National Security Council, warns that 

"the old-new accord that the USA is now marching towards will pave a sure path for Iran towards a nuclear weapon. after expiration of the limitations [sunset clause]. It has no tools that will force it [Iran] to sit in on discussions for 'a longer and stronger agreement,' And there is no reason to believe that it [Iran] will volunteer to do that on its own initiative. The ayatollahs' regime . . . will maximize what is possible for it to obtain through the agreement and it will do what it is capable of doing -- even against the agreement. [Yisrael HaYom 4 March 2022]

After all, the new accord shaping up has a weak inspection regime which fact seems to be frustrating Raffaele Grossi, head of the IAEA [international atomic energy agency], but he can do nothing without the support of the major powers who make  up the P5+1 group. The major sunset on the limitations supposedly imposed by the accord on Iran will take place in just a few years. If and when the accord is signed, Iran will get lots of dollars and other benefits with which it can finance its terrorist militias in several Middle Eastern countries which regularly cause havoc and suffering in countries where they are hosted, willingly or unwillingly, by the host state. To get some idea of the havoc and suffering consider Lebanon where Hizbullah --an Iranian cats paw-- has a chokehold on the state and most Lebanese are suffering for it.

It is hard not to conclude that the USA and perhaps some of the other powers WANT Iran to have The Bomb.

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ADDED 6-23-2022

https://carolineglick.com/time-to-stop-lying-to-ourselves-about-qatar/

Caroline Glick on Iran's nuke project, Qatar etc

Behind the Fog of War in Ukraine, Biden & Co. Prepare the Way for Iran to Get The Bomb

 David Weinberg agrees that war in the Ukraine is a very important issue. But he sees the upcoming agreement of the P5+1 powers with Iran, a "deal" allowing the ayatollahs to pursue their nuke bomb program, an ever greater danger to world peace and stability.

See below:

SO, YES, UKRAINE is a big story, and Putin is a menace to Western stability. But I will argue here that allowing Iran to march merrily forward with its nuclear bomb and ballistic missile programs and its hegemonic regional ambitions is an even worse threat to world security, and certainly to Israel’s security.

The about-to-be signed nuclear deal with Iran is “shorter and weaker” than president Barack Obama’s bad 2015 deal with the ayatollahs. The old/new deal maintains soon-coming sunset clauses; does not guarantee IAEA supervision of Iranian nuclear installations “anywhere and anytime”; and does not give global powers the actual ability to activate the “snapback mechanism,” which allowed president Donald Trump to reimpose sanctions.

It will whitewash all of Iran’s nuclear program violations to date (like enriching uranium to the 60% level) and allow Iran to keep its advanced centrifuges. It will pave a certain path for Iran to acquire a nuclear bomb in the coming years.

Reportedly, the just-round-the-corner agreement also lacks any mechanisms that will force Iran to engage in additional negotiations over a “longer and stronger” deal before the old/new deal expires – something the Biden administration had promised to Israel and the American public when it set out its goals.

Chillingly, the deal also will grant Iran hundreds of billions of dollars in sanctions relief, allowing Tehran to rehabilitate its economy and continue funding its terrorist proxies and hegemonic aggressions. Instead of reimposing maximum economic pressure and building a credible military threat against Iran, Biden is surrendering to Iran.

See more of this article in the Jerusalem Post of 24 February 2022.

Obama Pressured Europeans to Give in to Iran on the Nuclear Deal

Shocking news from the Wall Street Journal. It has long been known that France was much more concerned over an Iranian nuke than Washington was. Nicolas Sarkozy when he was president even made a speech about Iran as a problem at the UN General Assembly [see here about Iranian insults & threats to Sarkozy's wife]. Now we find out this:

One of the toughest of the country’s hard-nosed security experts, Bruno Tertrais, wrote last month in the Canadian newspaper Le Devoir that “with pressure from the Obama administration” European negotiators’ original intent deteriorated from a rollback of Iran’s nuclear ambitions to their containment. [John Vinocur in the Wall Street Journal, 24 August 2015]

So Obama's administration pressured the  supposed "Western allies" of the USA to go easy on Iran and give in to Iranian demands rather than forcing Iran to give in to Western demands, through sanctions for instance. Moreover, Obama's Iran nuke deal is:

. . . . what France knows is a lousy Iran nuclear deal. [same article, John Vinocur in the Wall Street Journal, 24 August 2015]

A French negotiator at the P5 + 1 talks with Iran was one Jacques Audibert. He met two American congressmen visiting France and told them that if Congress voted down the deal it would most likely NOT mean war. Rather, congressional disapproval of the deal would likely lead to renewed negotiations and a better deal. Here is the story from Bloomberg:

Top French Official Contradicts Kerry on Iran Deal

532 JUL 31, 2015 3:04 PM EDT

By Josh Rogin

Secretary of State John Kerry has been painting an apocalyptic picture of what would happen if Congress killed the Iran nuclear deal. Among other things, he has warned that “our friends in this effort will desert us." But the top national security official from one of those nations involved in the negotiations, France, has a totally different view: He told two senior U.S. lawmakers that he thinks a Congressional no vote might actually be helpful.

His analysis is already having an effect on how members of Congress, especially House Democrats, are thinking about the deal.

The French official, Jacques Audibert, is now the senior diplomatic adviser to President Francois Hollande. Before that, as the director general for political affairs in the Foreign Ministry from 2009 to 2014, he led the French diplomatic team in the discussions with Iran and the P5+1 group. Earlier this month, he met with Democrat Loretta Sanchez and Republican Mike Turner, both top members of the House Armed Services Committee, to discuss the Iran deal. The U.S. ambassador to France, Jane Hartley, was also in the room.

According to both lawmakers, Audibert expressed support for the deal overall, but also directly disputed Kerry’s claim that a Congressional rejection of the Iran deal would result in the worst of all worlds, the collapse of sanctions and Iran racing to the bomb without restrictions.

“He basically said, if Congress votes this down, there will be some saber-rattling and some chaos for a year or two, but in the end nothing will change and Iran will come back to the table to negotiate again and that would be to our advantage,” Sanchez told me in an interview. “He thought if the Congress voted it down, that we could get a better deal.”

. . . . . . . .

Audibert's comments as recounted by the lawmakers are a direct rebuttal to Kerry, who in remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations on July 24 said that if Congress voted down the deal, there would no chance to restart negotiations in search of a tougher pact. Kerry also said that Congressional rejection of the Iran deal would erode the U.S. credibility to strike any type of international agreement in the future. “Do you think the Ayatollah is going to come back to the table if Congress refuses this and negotiate again? Do you think that they're going to sit there and other people in the world are going to say, hey, let's go negotiate with the United States, they have 535 secretaries of State?” Kerry said. “I mean, please.”

This argument is being echoed by a throng of U.S. commentators and former Obama administration officials who support the deal. . . . . .

Audibert also wasn’t happy with some of the terms of the deal itself, according to Sanchez and Turner. He said he thought it should have been negotiated to last forever, not start to expire in as few as 10 years. He also said he didn’t understand why Iran needed more than 5,000 centrifuges for a peaceful nuclear program. He also expressed concerns about the robustness of the inspections and verification regime under the deal, according to the lawmakers. . . . .

When the lawmakers returned to Washington, news of their conversation with Audibert spread among their colleagues. Turner confronted Kerry with Audibert’s statements during a July 22 closed-door briefing with Kerry and more than 300 House lawmakers. The briefing was classified, but Turner’s questions to Kerry were not.

“Are you surprised Jacques Audibert believes we could have gotten a better deal?” Turner asked Kerry, according to Turner.

“The secretary appeared surprised and had no good answer as to why the national security adviser of France had a completely different position than what the secretary told us the same day,” Turner told me.

Sanchez was not at that briefing, but since then, many lawmakers have asked her about the information, especially Democrats, she told me. “It’s one piece of information that people will use to decide where they are,” she explained. [Josh Rogin, Bloomberg,  31 July 2015]

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France's position before capitulating to Obama administration pressure [here]

Saudi Arabia's stance against an Iranian nuke was clear but disregarded by Obama, as was Israel opposition [go to link and go down toward the bottom].

Italian Middle East expert, Carlo Panella, foresaw in 2009 that Obama and his crowd would capitulate to Iran on the nuclear issue [here]

John Kerry Lies to the Media and Public about the Surrender to the Ayatollahs' Destructive Nuclear Urges

We know that Obama is an artist of smooth, well-spoken lies. I cannot think of anybody who lies so well with a straight face. But secretary of state John Kerry lies too, albeit not as smoothly as his boss.

The fact is that Iran is in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty [NPT] signed years ago. Rather than negotiating with Iran, the USA and other states in the P5+1 group should have been working to force Iran to comply with its obligations under the NPT. But as we know Obama and other politicians wanted to negotiate with Iran over its nuke bomb endeavors. In this case, negotiating means compromising on the original provisions of the NPT.  The nuke deal with Iran from last week also excuses Iran from compliance with previous UN Security Council resolutions, as we see below.

Omri Ceren, one of the good guys in the fight against the Iranian nuke project, took up Kerry's brazen lies on the US Sunday news interview shows. Omri sent this around as a fact sheet for the Israel Project where he works. The problems are not only Iran's nuke project. Consider item 2) below and bear in mind that Iran has been developing long-range ballistic missiles [ICBMs intercontinental ballistic missiles] the better to deliver any future bomb and not just on Israel:

The administration is scrambling to justify collapsing on conditions related to the three overarching areas of the JCPOA [= Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] debate:
1) will it work to keep Iran away from a nuclear weapon for a decade (the verification debate); 
2) even if it works, is it worth the cost of empowering Iran with advanced weapons and hundreds of billions of dollars (the arms embargo debate);
3) doesn't the deal make Iran into a nuclear power – the opposite of what it was supposed to do – because it expires and allows Iran's breakout time to go to zero (the sunset clause debate).
. . . . .
By far the most unexpected concession made at Vienna involved the Americans bowing to new Iranian-Russian demands to eliminate the United Nation arms embargo. Restrictions on conventional weapons will now expire in 5 years and ones on ballistic missiles will expire in 8 years. The collapse - which has been wrapped into how Iran is also receiving a short-term $150 billion windfall and long-term sanctions relief - was discussed on every one of the Sunday shows [a][b][c][d][e].

Kerry and Moniz had three different responses sprinkled across the shows: (1) that the administration had no choice but to concede on the arms embargo, and it was actually an American diplomatic victory because it's being phased out rather than lifted immediately (2) that dropping the arms embargo doesn't matter - "a mountain is being made out of a mole hill" - because there are other restrictions on Iranian arms transfers (3) that Iran won't get sufficient relief to exploit the arms embargo being lifted.

(1) The administration had no choice but to concede on the arms embargo, and it was actually an American diplomatic victory because it's being phased out rather than lifted immediately -

ABC This Week
KERRY: The United Nations resolution which brought about the sanctions in the first place said that if Iran will suspend its enrichment and come to negotiations, all the sanctions would be lifted. Now, they've done more than just come to negotiations. They've actually negotiated a deal. And three of the seven nations thought they shouldn't therefore be held to any kind of restraint. We prevailed and insisted, no, they have to be.
CBS Face the Nation
KERRY: ... [T]he reason that we were only able to limit them to the five and eight, which is quite extraordinary that we got that, was that three of the nations negotiating thought they shouldn't have any and were ready to hold out to do that. And we said under no circumstances, we have to have those...
Fox News Sunday
KERRY: This is a nuclear negotiation about a nuclear program. The United Nations, when they passed the resolution, contemplated that if Iran came to the negotiation and they ponied up, all the sanctions would be lifted. We didn't lift all the sanctions. We left in place despite the fact that three out of seven countries negotiating wanted to do away with them altogether. We won the five years for the arms and eight years for the missiles.
CNN State of the Union
KERRY: ... [T]his UN process that started the – that allowed the sanctions to be put in place in the first place contemplated the lifting of all sanctions once Iran had lived up to its obligations with respect to the NPT. So if the IAEA found in X number of years that they've lived up to this, then all the sanctions would be gone. So we, in fact, succeeded against three countries that didn't think they should have to do anything.
NBC Meet The Press
KERRY: And by the way, even though the arms and the missiles were put to – by the – they were thrown in as an add-on to this nuclear agreement. It was always contemplated that if Iran did come and deal on their nuclear program, that was going to be lifted.

This claim is false on at least a couple of levels. First, the condition for lifting the arms embargo was not that Iran "come to negotiations." UNSCR 1929 stipulated that the embargo was to remain in place until Iran had complied with UNSCR 1929 plus past UNSCRs 1696, 1737, 1747, and 1803 ([f] - ctrl-f down to "to persuade Iran to comply with resolutions"). The UNSCRs obligated Iran to stop all uranium enrichment, cease all heavy water plutonium work, and halt all development of proliferation sensitive ballistic missiles. So the arms embargo was to remain in place until Iran dismantled its nuclear program, not until it agreed to negotiate.

Second, there was nothing forcing U.S. to agree to lift the embargo. The JCPOA allows Iran to continue doing all of the activities prohibited by previous UNSCRs. The Americans could and should have argued that Iran was already receiving a Get Out Of Jail Free Card on its UNSCR obligations via sanctions relief, and that there was no reason to also gift them with the removal of the arms embargo.

(2) Dropping the arms embargo doesn't matter - "a mountain is being made out of a mole hill" - because there are other restrictions on Iranian arms transfers -

ABC This Week
KERRY: But we have ample other resolutions that allow us to hold them accountable for moving any weapons. President Obama is committed to doubling down on the enforcement of those measures. So I really think that a mountain is being made out of a molehill here.
CBS Face the Nation
KERRY: ... [T]hey add on to additional mechanisms that we have to hold them accountable on arms and missiles. We have the missile control technology regime. We have other missile restraints on them. We also have other UN resolutions that prevent them from moving arms to the Houthi, prevents them from moving arms to the Shia, prevents them from – to the Shia militia in Iraq, prevents them from moving arms to Hizballah.
CNN State of the Union
QUESTION: ... Why is lifting the embargo part of this deal?
KERRY: Well, we're not lifting it. It has eight years out of a 10-year component of the UN resolution. Eight years it will be applied, and we have other UN resolutions and other mechanisms for holding Iran accountable on missiles.
Fox News Sunday
KERRY: But we have many other sanctions still applicable, and we can bring other sanctions to push back against any of their behavior. They're not allowed to send arms to Hizballah. That's a separate resolution. They're not allowed to send arms to the Shia militia in Iraq. A separate resolution. They're not allowed to send arms to the Houthis. Separate resolution. So we, in fact, have a huge ability to be able to bring any number of efforts against Iran for any bad behavior here whatsoever.

This claim is misleading because the JCPOA will make it functionally impossible to reimpose economic pressure on Iran, regardless of what laws remain on the books [g]. 

Paragraph 25: "If a law at the state or local level in the United States is preventing the implementation of the sanctions lifting as specified in this JCPOA, the United States will take appropriate steps... with a view to achieving such implementation." 

Paragraph 26: "The EU will refrain from re-introducing or re-imposing the sanctions that it has terminated implementing under this JCPOA... The United States will make best efforts in good faith to sustain this JCPOA and to prevent interference with the realisation of the full benefit by Iran of the sanctions lifting specified in Annex II." 

Paragraph 29: "The EU and its Member States and the United States, consistent with their respective laws, will refrain from any policy specifically intended to directly and adversely affect the normalisation of trade and economic relations with Iran inconsistent with their commitments not to undermine the successful implementation of this JCPOA."

The punchline is the very last line of the very last paragraph of the main agreement, which gives Iran its own snapback mechanism against the United States by allowing it to return to enrichment if sanctions are even partially reinstated. 

Paragraph 37: "Iran has stated that if sanctions are reinstated in whole or in part, Iran will treat that as grounds to cease performing its commitments under this JCPOA in whole or in part." Maybe the administration will say that the passage was only intended to refer to nuclear sanctions. That's not how it's written, and the Iranians have a 100% success rate of winning interpretation debates vs. the Americans over vague language in agreements and factsheets.

(3) Iran won't get sufficient relief to exploit the arms embargo being lifted

Fox News SundayQUESTION: Under this deal, we lift the arms embargo on Iran being able to buy weapons and even ballistic missiles between five and eight years. And the sanctions against General Soleimani, head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's Qods Force, are also lifted. What we end up with, Secretary Kerry, is an Iran with billions, hundreds of billions of dollars more, able to buy weapons, and a Revolutionary Guard with fewer restraints. Isn't that potentially an even more dangerous state sponsor of terror in the Middle East?
KERRY: First of all, Chris, don't exaggerate. It's not hundreds of billions of dollars. It's $100 billion.
QUESTION: That's in the first year.
KERRY: But – it's their money that they have had frozen.
QUESTION: I understand. But it's a hundred --
KERRY: Well, let me – but let me just finish.
QUESTION: A hundred fifty billion is the first year.
KERRY: Please. Chris, this is not supposed to be a debate. You're supposed to ask a question and we're supposed to be able to answer it.

This is a strange stance to take. The $100 - $150 billion windfall will occur within months of the deal being implemented, but while that happens the sanctions regime will be shredded, allowing the Iranian economy to skyrocket to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. The lifting of economic sanctions will trigger a gold rush into Iran [h]. The administration used to claim that worries over Iranian noncompliance would dampen enthusiasm - because no company wants to enter the market if they have to leave a year later - but the final JCPOA has a loophole so snapback doesn't apply to companies that set up shop in Iran before noncompliance [i]. Snapback is a fiction anyway [j]. Meanwhile the delisting of banks will remove the last economic lever that the West has over Iran, and those financial sanctions are never coming back [k].

- - - - - - - - - - - - - END of Omri Ceren's Factsheet for The Israel Project - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Once upon a time, the so-called "Left" opposed nuclear proliferation. Cathy Ashton, the mentally challenged former commissioner of foreign affairs for the EU commission, had even been a hired employee of the British supposed anti-nuke outfit, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Then when she started work with the EU and negotiated with Iranian representatives she became in fact an agent of nuclear proliferation and was effectively scoffing at the principle of nuclear disarmament. Obama is identified with the "Left" but we don't know anymore what those terms, left and right, mean. In the 1950s, officials of the Republican Eisenhower administration were quite complacent about nuclear weapons and "peaceful uses of atomic energy." Nowadays, the so-called "Left", led by Obama is actively facilitating nuclear proliferation to Iran and indirectly provoking Sunni Arab states like Saudi Arabia and Egypt to set up or restart their own nuclear programs [as in Egypt's case] as a defensive measure against Iran. Hence, Obama is instrumental in bringing  about a dread nuclear arms race. And Obama and his minions have the hhutspah to insinuate that opponents of the nuke deal with Iran are warmongers. 

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Former Saudi ambassador to US chides Obama for making the nuke deal with Iran which he indicates is worse than Clinton's nuke deal with North Korea. [here & here]

For those who are not aware, Saudi Arabia has been consulting with Israel for some time now in trying to work together to counter Obama's pro-Iran nuke deal, despite all of the other issues that divide the two countries.

Obama & Kerry to Iran: If you like your nuke you can keep your nuke!!

If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period.
Barack Hussein Obama, President of the United States, 
to the AMA 15 June 2009 

Prez Obama lied to his own people when he wanted to push through his so-called Obamacare medical plan, in order to quiet down opposition and prevent his electoral base from verging into opposition to that plan. In fact, his plan has led to a severe reduction in medical care for many Americans, including those retired people living on Social Security and used to receiving medical care under the previous Medicare plan. And under Obamacare, many Americans cannot keep their doctor. Obama is lying again today. If Obama is capable of lying to his own people so as to negatively affect their medical care, and thus their health, why would he not lie to nations outside the USA?

He sent secretary of state Kerry to lie for him to the Arab states opposed to and threatened by a nuclear Iran, as well as to Israel which shares common ground with Arab states, at least on this one issue on which both Israel and most Arab states share fears of an Iranian Bomb. Last night [Saturday night]  I heard Kerry say on Israel TV channel 10:

"We will have inspectors in there every single day. That's not a 10-year deal. That's forever. There have to be inspections," he said. [Also see Jerusalem Post, 2 May 2015, Internet ed.]

Every day? Have the Iranians agreed to that? In fact, Iran has been legally bound for several decades to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which already obliged Iran to undergo inspections of nuclear sites or suspected nuclear sites. But Iran has long resisted compliance with the treaty and prevented inspectors from the IAEA [international atomic energy agency] from inspecting in Iran as they had the legal right to do by virtue of the treaty. Which Iran has been violating for years by that fact alone, among others. Nonetheless, major Western powers, the UK, France, Germany and the USA have given Iran several "last chances." The first "last chance" was in 2003. Hence, you have to ask whether these powers really wanted to stop Iran from obtaining The Bomb --- or did they quietly want Iran to have The Bomb?

Anyhow, with Obama & Kerry and their team of lethal clowns in power, things are getting worse from the nuclear non-proliferation standpoint. Now, in order to calm down Arab opposition to the Iran nuke deal, the White House is said to be offering them high tech weapons never offered to them before (which they are however well able to pay for). But the USA is already committed to maintaining an Israeli upper hand over the Arabs in armaments, in view of the fact that the  Arabs were long threatening Israel but Israel was not threatening them. Since Obama has no compunctions about violating the international obligations of the United States, including treaties, it might sell these Arab states the very most advanced weapons. This will create a very dangerous situation in the Middle East which will be worse than the present dangerous situation. Some Arab states may work to develop their own nuke weapons to reinforce themselves, supposedly, against Iranian aggression. 

So Obama's "peace efforts" are looking more and more like war efforts. Nevertheless, Kerry claimed that:
"I say it again. We will not sign a deal that does not close off Iran's pathways to a bomb and that doesn't give us the confidence to all of our experts and global experts, that we will be able to know what Iran is doing and prevent them from getting a nuclear weapon."

A sure way to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon would be to make sure that Iran divests itself of its nuke bomb making capacity. The Lausanne framework as proclaimed by Obama and by Iranian officials [who did not agree on the content of the framework] is meant to contain Iran's capacity to produce a nuke bomb, not to eliminate that capacity. Hence, according to what Obama and his minions are admitting to now, the agreement which is not yet an agreement will allow Iran to keep its nuke bombmaking capacity. Hence there is always the danger that it will make a bomb, The Bomb, once it has decided to do so. And in a short time. Furthermore, Kerry's claim about "inspectors in there [watching Iran's nuke project] every single day" sounds groundless, given the fact that Iran has been preventing IAEA inspectors from viewing its nuke project for years, and when not preventing access for the inspectors, it has been making things difficult for them. 

So other regional governments, Arabs, Israel, and others, believe that Iran will have The Bomb sooner or later and most likely sooner. Therefore, 

"Leading Persian Gulf states want major new weapons systems and security guarantees from the White House in exchange for backing a nuclear agreement with Iran, according to U.S. and Arab officials." . . . [Wall Street Journal, JAY SOLOMON And  CAROL E. LEE, May 2, 2015]

". . . The demands underscore what complicated diplomatic terrain Mr. Obama is navigating as he drives toward one of his top foreign-policy goals, and they demonstrate how a nuclear deal with Iran aimed at stabilizing the Middle East risks further militarizing an already volatile region." [Ibid, WSJ, 2 May 2015]

Although these Arab countries are mainly interested in having the most advanced weapons to counter the Iranian threat, which will grow if Iran has The Bomb,  their having these weapons will also threaten Israel. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shares the Arab governments’ belief that Iran poses the greatest security challenge to their region. But there remains fear in Israel that over the long term any sophisticated systems sold to the GCC countries could eventually be turned on Israel, according to Israeli officials. [Ibid.]

Another danger is that the failure to enforce existing and longstanding treaties, like the NPT [nuclear non-proliferation treaty] or the laws of the sea treaties or the treaty guaranteeing US defense of the Marshall Islands, relevant in regard to the ship seized by Iran last week that was flying the Marshall Islands flag, is dangerous.

Assuming America does not act to enforce international conventions, however, Iran will have proved her point that the conventions are no longer enforced. [Cmdr J E Dyer, USN ret here]

This means that the USA under Obama is helping make treaties ridiculous, and thereby increasing the risk to peace in other ways than simply letting Iran build The Bomb.

Once again, Obama and Kerry's "peace efforts" turn out to be war efforts.
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Sarah Honig supplies additional reasons not to trust Obama's administration [here].
Karen Elliott House explains and describes Saudi Arabia's new diplomacy [here] on 1 May 2015 in Wall Street Journal. See this paragraph: 
". . .  in two weeks . . . Mr. Obama hosts a summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council, or GCC, a collection of small Gulf countries plus Saudi Arabia, that Riyadh is seeking to lead in combating Iran’s Middle East expansion. The Saudis still hope to persuade Washington to be more active in the fight not just against Islamic State forces but also against Bashar Assad in Syria.
Mr. Obama seems to see the summit as simply an opportunity to encourage these nations to fend for themselves, showing U.S. concern for their security without offering concrete action. As Saudis point out, there is a chasm between Mr. Obama’s words and actions—as seen in his unilateral erasing of the “red line” he declared regarding Mr. Assad’s use of chemical weapons in Syria."

Negotiating with Iran, the Powers Avoid Crimes against the Jews

The Major Western Powers --the US, UK, France, & Germany -- have been negotiating with Iran over its nuclear bomb project for many years. As far back as 2003, these powers, all sitting on the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, got a motion passed at that body to give Iran "one last chance" to prove that it was not in violation [non-compliance] with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the NPT. Of course Iran was in violation and of course everybody knew it. But such are the strange ways of diplomacy that mild sanctions were not applied against Iran for non-compliance until 2007 while "biting sanctions" took effect only in January 2012. All the while Iran was developing the capacity to produce a nuclear bomb.

Meanwhile, in 2006 these four Western powers were joined by Russia and China in a group called P5 +1, referring to the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany. The biting or punitive sanctions imposed as of January 2012 were having a severe effect on the Iranian economy. However, in late 2013 Obama and Kerry decided to ease the sanctions and negotiate with the ayatollahs. All this instead of enforcing the terms of the NPT. In fact, the NPT is hardly ever mentioned, which likely leaves many people wondering what is the legal ground for preventing Iran from developing The Bomb.

Nevertheless, my object in this post is a violation of international law by Iran that the P5 + 1 powers seem to be totally disinterested in. I refer to the threats against Israel coming out of Teheran. Such threats are forbidden by the UN charter, Article 2, clause 4:
"All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations."

Hatred for Jews and Israel goes back to the early days of the Khomeini takeover of Iran, facilitated at the time by the policy of Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security advisor for President Carter.

However, the first threat that I have dug up goes back to 20 October 2006 when Ahmadinajad stated:
"Israel will disappear . . . [because of] the rage of hundreds of millions of Muslims"
[quoted by Carlo Panella in Fascismo Islamico (Milan: Rizzoli 2007), pp 23-24]

Since then assorted Iranian leaders and officials have threatened Israel again and again:

11/09/2014: Ayatollah Khamenei’s Twitter: “This barbaric, wolflike & infanticidal regime of #Israel which spares no crime has no cure but to be annihilated." [here]

July 28, 2014: On #Eid al-Fitr we pray that #God repels& fends off the evil existence of oppressive & bloodthirsty Zionists from #Palestine& region.8/31/11 #GazaUnderAttack:[here]

 8/28/2013: “Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, chief of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guards, used stronger rhetoric while talking to the Tasnim news website, saying an attack on Syria would draw in Israel. "The Zionists should know that a U.S. military attack on Syria will not save the fake regime from the resistance but it means the immediate destruction of Israel," Jafari was quoted as saying.” [here]

8/26/2013 ". . . . the Zionist regime will be the first victim of a military attack on Syria,” Iran’s Fars news agency quoted senior parliamentary official Hossein Sheikholeslam as saying on Monday.”[here]

Iran chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi in a meeting of defense officials in May 2012: “The Iranian nation is standing for its cause and that is the full annihilation of Israel.” [here]

And we could go on and on.

Amazing Resemblance to Hitler's Threats Against Jews:

The form of these threats is very similar to the form of the threat that Hitler made to wipe out the Jews. He said in 1939:

"If the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the bolshevization of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!" [here]

 Note that in this quote Hitler presents himself as pro-peace and as an enemy of international finance capital, as if he were a Marxist-Leninist [as in Lenin's Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism], while at the same time defining Bolshevism as an enemy. Whatever his many faults, Lenin did not write in the book cited that finance capital was Jewish. Moreover, you can see from the quote that Hitler was pretending to be a friend of peace and was blaming the Jews in advance for the world war that he planned to start.

 Furthermore, let's bear in mind that the very name of Hitler's party, for which Nazi was a convenient abbreviation, was a very "Leftist" name. It was officially called the National Socialist German Workers Party [Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP)]. His party was not only socialist but it was a "workers party." You can't ask for more than that.

Iranian officials use another rhetorical device to present themselves as "leftists." In this vein, an Iranian member of parliament identified the regime with "revolutionaries." On 8/27/2013 the semiofficial Fars news agency quoted Mansur Haqiqatpur, an influential member of Parliament, as saying on the preceding Tuesday: “In case of a U.S. military strike against Syria, the flames of outrage of the region’s revolutionaries will point toward the Zionist regime.”

 The resemblance of Iranian threat rhetoric against Israel to Hitler's threats against the Jews is so astoundingly similar as to imply that the Iranian ayatollahs and their minions copied directly from Hitler's rhetoric. Consider this from General Jafari of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards: "The Zionists should know that a U.S. military attack on Syria [if it happens] will not save the fake regime from the resistance but it means the immediate destruction of Israel." This sentence contains an implicit IF clause. That is, IF the US attacks Syria, that means the immediate destruction of Israel. Of all the Iranian statements that I have quoted above, this statement is the one most blatantly similar to Hitler's IF threat of 1939, also quoted above.

All the above makes outrageous the failure of the P5 + 1 powers to make the threats against Israel part of the negotiations with Iran, part of the condemnation of Iran for violating international law. These powers are demonstrating to the world that international law is a sad joke. And that they do not care for Jewish lives.

The international laws are enforced when major powers see fit, when it is in their current interest. Otherwise, the law is just words on paper.

Did the Western Great Powers Ever Want to Stop the Iranian Nuke Program? -- The Same Powers Favored Mussolini with the Same Trick

UPDATING 1-13&3-13-2012

Anti-Zionism is the anti-imperialism of fools.

It has been known for years that Iran was working on a nuclear program. Former Israeli prime minster Yits'haq Rabin was warning about it before he was killed in 1995. This program has long seemed aimed at producing an Iranian atomic bomb, despite Iran's commitment to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, in violation of that treaty. The International Atomic Energy Agency was dealing with the issue years ago. Yet nothing concrete has been done by the major Western powers to stop the nuke program or, more precisely, nothing that we know of other than economic sanctions. And even those sanctions waited for years to be imposed. Iran was given a "last chance" to mend its nuclear ways as far back as 2003. But there were several subsequent "last chances."

The US delegate to the IAEA gave a rather good speech at the March 2006 meeting of the IAEA Board of Governors. But little if any concrete action came out of the meeting. One problem was the head of the IAEA at the time, Muhammad Barada'i, an Egyptian who consistently belittled warnings that the Iranian nuclear project was meant to produce a nuke bomb. He did this although his own government seems to have been concerned with Iranian aggressive actions and intentions toward the Sunni Muslim world, as were several other Sunni Arab powers, like Saudi Arabia.

All this time Iran's work on developing the nuke bomb has been progressing, and sanctions of any seriousness were only applied relatively recently. This means that US presidents going back to Bill Clinton were not acting against the threat of an Iranian nuke bomb. These presidents include Clinton, George Bush II [I don't know about his father], and Obama who openly declared a soft policy on Iran. Obama's policy is softer now even than that of Britain although the US and Britain are so often in lock-step on foreign policy issues. This article & this one indicate that the Obama administration is opposed to stronger sanctions on Iran called for by the House of Representatives. Here is a report of British actions imposed after rioters instigated by the Iranian govt attacked the UK embassy in Teheran.

Elliott Abrams, a former Bush Administration defense official, lists a number of recent Obama administration statements that discard any threat or possibility of military force to be used against Iran and/or its nuke program. Abrams interprets a recent declaration by an Obama "national official," the deputy national security advisor, as giving:

. . . a White House assurance that the United States does not intend to challenge an assertion of Iranian dominance in the region. [here]

For years the great powers avoided placing sanctions on Iran which was violating its commitment to the NPT [non-proliferation treaty]. Now, the great powers are imposing sanctions. But what does that mean? The game of great powers imposing sanctions that will not accomplish their ostensible purpose, in this case preventing an Iranian nuclear bomb, has a history. Consider the sanctions imposed by the League of Nations on Italy over the invasion of Ethiopia in the 1930s.

The regime [Mussolini's regime] conquered its empire of stone and sand in Ethiopia, its "place in the sun." It succeeded in doing that, in fact, with Anglo-French backing. France and England, through the League of Nations which they controlled, had a fake economic embargo passed against Italy. However, excluded from it [the embargo] was the supply of Iraqi oil which our [Italian] troops marching on Addis Ababa could not do without. In any event, those sanctions were never applied and were even revoked immediately after the success of the Duce's colonial undertaking.
[Mario Jose Cereghino e Giovanni Fasanella, Il Golpe Inglese (Milano: Chiarelettere 2011), p 36-- emphasis added].
[The key phrase in this passage is "fake economic embargo". In the original it is "finto embargo economico"]

So fake or inadequate economic sanctions are an old trick of great powers. The authors of the passage quoted are saying in essence that Britain and France wanted Italy to conquer Ethiopia in that period. The delay of sanctions against Iran for years --let's say at least since 2003-- and the eventual imposition of inadequate sanctions just show that the powers can still get away with their old tricks. Nothing new under the sun.

- - - - - - - -
12-18-2011 Jonathan Tobin sees the sanctions as weak and notes the Obama administration's refusal to sanction dealings with Iran's central bank [National Bank of Iran].
1-5-2012 Jonathan Tobin sees Obama as reluctant or unwilling --and in case unlikely-- to enforce the sanctions against dealing with the Iranian Central Bank. Read him here.
1-8-2012 Michael Rubin believes that the Washington "foreign policy establishment" engages in doubletalk in order not to propose real and biting sanctions on Iran's ayatollahs [here]
1-13-2012 Jonathan Tobin wonders if the Obama administration condemnation of the assassination of the Iranian nuclear scientist conceals a reluctance to stop Iran's nuke project [here]
3-13-2012 Jonathan Tobin claims that Israel's hints that it might strike Iran's nuke project have brought Obama & Cameron together in antagonism to such an Israeli strike and have led the EU and USA to increase sanctions on Iran [here]

EU to Remove Ban on Iranian Nuke Officials Coming to EU Lands

Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign affairs commissioner, is going to lift the ban forbidding the Iranian foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, to travel in EU territory. The ban was imposed on him because he was previously head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Agency which is working to produce a nuclear bomb, thereby violating Iran's commitment not to make a nuke bomb, a commitment undertaken by Iran when it signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty back in the 1960s. Salehi was declared "persona non grata" in the EU because of his role in Iran's nuke Bomb Project. Now the British Lady [Lady Ashton is supposed to be a lady] is overlooking Iran's treaty violation, thereby encouraging Iran's nuke Bomb Project.

Lady Ashton intends to remove the ban on Salehi so that he can properly carry out his new functions.

Funny, isn't it, that "extreme leftist revolutionaries" defend the Iranian Bomb Project, and high officials of the EU do so as well?? Leading EU states plus the USA played games for years with Iran over the nuke project, setting several new deadlines in order to cater to Iran after Iran had failed to meet previous deadlines. Lately, Muhammad al-Barada`i, who covered up for Iran's bomb project as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency in the fateful years of Iranian nuclear development, has been touted as a suitable leader for a new "democratic" Egypt by the Obama White House and the State Department. Islamic fanatics in the Hizbullah and other terrorist organizations also defend and support the Iranian Bomb Project. Maybe the EU and the "Left" and the jihadists all think that an Iranian bomb is just what the world needs in the 21st century. With that kind of broad agreement coming from almost everybody, maybe the world is heading towards peace!

Here is the report on this news from Guysen News, 2-9-2011.

L'Union européenne devrait lever les restrictions interdisant au ministre iranien des Affaires étrangères, Ali Akbar Salehi, de voyager dans les pays européens, à cause de sa participation dans le programme nucléaire iranien. M. Salehi occupait comme précédent poste la direction de l'Agence iranienne de l'énergie atomique, et avait été de ce fait déclaré persona non grata en Europe. La chef de la diplomatie de l'UE, Catherine Ashton, compte changer la donne afin de permettre à M. Salehi de remplir comme il se doit ses nouvelles fonctions. [ici 2-9-2011, Guysen News 11:10]

Influencing American Foreign Policy -- The Impotence of Jews & Arabs Together

UPDATING links added 12-15-2010

The Wikileaks are telling the broad public some truths that were earlier mainly known only to the very well-informed. Jeffrey Goldberg explains that American foreign policy is made by US officials, although I would not say that policy is necessarily made in the American interest. That interest is itself a matter of interpretation and controversy.

The Impotence of the

Pan-Semitic Front

By Jeffrey Goldberg

Here's a fact that might astonish Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, whose book, "The Israel Lobby," posits the existence of a nefarious, all-powerful Jewish lobby that works in direct opposition to American interests: The "Lobby" (they love to capitalize the word, to accentuate its alleged uniqueness) has failed to convince two successive American administrations, one Republican and one Democratic, to attack Iran's nuclear sites. So much for Jewish power.

Here's another fact that might astonish Walt and Mearsheimer: It turns out that the Jewish lobby wasn't even the main lobby working to bring about an attack on Iran. It was, according to the treasure trove of State Department cables released by Wikileaks, the Arab lobby -- whose lead lobbyist is, by the way, the King of Saudi Arabia (which is a big job, since he's also in charge of the world's oil supply) -- that was at the forefront of an intensive, even ferocious, anti-Iran lobbying effort. For Walt and Mearsheimer to acknowledge that the Arab lobby, and not the Jewish lobby, was the prime mover of this issue would mean that they would have to recall their book, and somehow stuff back into a bottle all of the anti-Semitic invective they unleashed in the book's wake. So don't expect an apology anytime soon.

In sum, what we have here is a situation in which all of the Semites in combination have been proven impotent in their attempt to move American foreign policy. Which suggests that American foreign policy might actually be made by Americans. This is definitely a tough week for the neo-Lindberghians.

This article available online at: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/11/the-impotence-of-the-pan-semitic-front/67222/ Copyright © 2010 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All Rights Reserved.

I'm not sure that Goldberg believes that walt-mearsheimer really believe in what they wrote in their own book called The Israel Lobby. In fact, Mearsheimer himself was interviewed on NPR several years ago and contradicted the claims made by walt & himself in their book, which might better be called a non-book, to use terminology from the 1960s and 1970s. Goldberg would have done better to write: Here's a fact that might astonish walt & mearsheimer if they really believed what they wrote in their book The Israel Lobby.

The revelation discussed by Goldberg is that Arab rulers too, not only Israel, were very concerned by the Iranian nuclear bomb project. This was known long ago and even reported fairly frankly in early 2009 by an Arab reporter with the Associated Press. Maybe the phoney experts on Middle Eastern affairs who proliferate and swarm in the major mass media and the "think tanks" don't read AP reports. Otherwise, why were they so ignorant and misleading?? A Jerusalem Post editorial mentions some of the names: Marc Lynch of Foreign Policy, Robert Dreyfuss of the once rational The Nation, and of course walt-mearsheimer. There are many more lesser and greater lights who reiterated the same silliness.

Getting back to Goldberg's point that the influence of the Semites in Washington, of Jews and Arabs taken either separately or together, was not enough to move Washington to a really firm policy against the Iranian Bomb, a policy not ruling out military action, as several Arab rulers called for, what do we conclude. First of all, the actual US policy was made by Americans, not Arabs or Jews or both, and not necessarily in the true, paramount interest of the American people which would be to limit nuclear proliferation. Secondly, it seems that --despite many fine words over the many years history of the Iran nuke endeavor-- the Washington policymakers did not want to stop the Iranian Bomb project. They want Iran to have the Bomb.

- - - - - - - - - -
Barry Rubin on Wikileaks and the Iranian Bomb [here]
David Horowitz, editor of the Jerusalem Post on Obama's duplicity concerning the Iranian Bomb Project [here]
Judith Apter Klinghoffer covers disappointment among Western "leftists" that Arabs too opposed the Iranian Bomb [here]. She also argued that "Obama lied when he pretended that he needed to kick Israel to convince Arabs to support his anti-Iran policy" [here].
12-8-2010 Tariq al-Mohayed admits that the wikileaks revelations about Arab opposition to the Iranian Bomb Project were true [here]. He calls them: "leaked US diplomatic cables."
12-15-2010 Martin Kramer brings a lecture from two years ago explaining that Arab states feared an Iranian Bomb [here].

The West Is Getting Ready to Surrender to the Ayatollahs over Iran's Nuclear Project

UPDATINGS 12-10, 14, 17, 19-2009 at bottom

Anti-Zionism is the anti-imperialism of fools

The Obama administration, even more so than the Bush administration before it, goes through some ineffective, rather transparent motions pretending to try or pretending to want to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear bomb. But in Europe, some serious people are very worried indeed, as Israelis are. We have already noted French President Sarkozy's rather overt criticism of Obama for not taking the Iranian bomb project seriously enough, for not doing anything really capable of stopping A-jad's quest for the bomb. Some French political authors have written seriously on the subject, more than is usual --it seems-- in the USA where Columbia University seems to have considered it perfectly acceptable to accept a large cash "contribution" from an Iranian-controlled foundation in exchange for inviting A-jad to speak at Morningside Heights.

In Italy too concerned voices have been raised. Indeed, the Italian political commentator, Carlo Panella, recently wrote that the West is getting ready to surrender on the Iranian nuclear issue, while the newspaper Il Foglio deplores Muhammad al-Barada'is' endeavors to water down and obfuscate the issue and conceal Iran's rather obvious nuclear bomb intentions. Panella discusses the futility of the Geneva talks --if one really wants to end Iran's nuclear bomb project, as well as criticizing Obama for temporizing.

Muhammad al-Barada'i took on the not so difficult task of explaining to the world --i.e. to Barack Obama-- what it means to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize that he received in 2005: playing three cards, cheating naturally. He did not deny himself yesterday when, at the end of the second Geneva meeting on the Iranian nuclear project between Teheran's delegation and the Four Plus One (USA, UK, France, Russia plus Germany), he triumphantly announced: "It was a good beginning"!
. . . .
Even worse, after Ali Shirizadian, the Iranian spokesman, announced that the transfer of uranium enrichment abroad, the subject of the negotiations, was only meant to contain costs, but did not in fact mean the end of the enrichment programs developed in Iran or the full transfer of these programs outside the country." In short, Iran will never transfer all of the nuclear processing outside its borders (and therefore will be quite free to obtain the heavy uranium that it needs for the atomic bomb) and will restrict itself to transferring a part of it abroad, but only for the savings. A solemn joke at the expense of the gullible, to which was added a dry kick in the teeth for France that Iran accuses of thwarting the negotiations. Therefore, it will never ever agree to transfer any enrichment processing to that country. A humiliation of one of the principal countries seated at the negotiating table, which follows dozens of other provocations.

. . .
Therefore, the Geneva negotiations are turning out to be what Iran wanted them to be: a loss of time which allows the pasdaran and the ayatollahs to proceed undisturbed to bestow an atomic bomb on themselves. It is the nth confirmation of the total failure of the "change" undertaken by Barack Obama, of the end of the carrot and stick policy started by George W Bush, and the obvious result of the end of any threat of reprisal against Iran --including military-- that the new president wanted. From delay to delay, Obama has given the Iranian military atomic program more than one year's time to develop undisturbed (Bush suspended his policy, based on negotiations but also on concrete military threats, in the Fall of 2008, specifically on the possibility that Obama might win the elections and make it moot), and now he continues to move back the date of a final check. First he set the end of September and then the end of October. Now it will go to December and then he will continue temporizing. Obama is giving the world a proof of extraordinary weakness and absolute blindness. He is demonstrating that he fully deserved the Nobel Peace Prize. Like al-Barada'i.

Here is Panella's original:

Mohammed el Baradei si è assunto il non difficile compito di spiegare al mondo –ae a Barack Obama- cosa significhi essere insignito del Nobel per la Pace, che ricevette nel 2005: giocare alle tre carte, barando, naturalmente. Non si è smentito ieri, quando, a conclusione del secondo incontro di Ginevra sul nucleare iraniano, tra la delegazione di Teheran e i “quattro più uno”, ha annunciato trionfante: “E’ stato un buon inizio”!
. . . . .
Ancor peggio, dopo che Ali Shirizadian, portavoce iraniano, ha annunciato che lo spostamento dell’arricchimento dell’uranio all’estero –oggetto della trattativa di Ginevra- punta solo ad un contenimento dei costi, ma che non significa affatto la fine dei programmi d’arricchimento sviluppate in Iran o il trasferimento integrale di queste operazioni al di fuori del paese”. Insomma, l’Iran non trasferirà mai l’intero processo nucleare fuori dalle sue frontiere (e quindi sarà liberissimo di arrivare all’uranio pesante che gli serve per la bomba atomica) e si limiterà a spostarne una parte all’estero, ma solo per risparmiare. Una solenne presa per i fondelli, a cui si aggiunge un secco calcio nei denti alla Francia che l’Iran accusa di avversare la trattativa, per cui mai e poi mai accetterà di trasferire nessun processo di arricchimento in quel paese. Una umiliazione ad uno dei principali paesi seduti al tavolo della trattativa, che segue decine di altre provocazioni. . .

. . . . . .
La trattativa di Ginevra si conferma dunque per quel che l’Iran voleva che fosse: una perdita di tempo, che permette ai pasdaran e agli ayatollah di procedere indisturbati a dotarsi di una bomba atomica. E’ l’ennesima conferma del fallimento pieno della “svolta” impressa da Barack Obama, della fine della politica della carota e del bastone avviata da Gorge W. Bush e il risultato ovvio della fine di ogni minaccia di ritorsione all’Iran –inclusa quella militare- che il nuovo presidente ha voluto. Di rinvio in rinvio, Obama ha dato al programma militare atomico iraniano più di un anno di tempo per svilupparsi indisturbato (Bush sospese la sua politica basata su trattative, ma anche concrete minacce militari, nell’autunno 2008, proprio nell’eventualità che Obama vincesse le elezioni e che la vanificasse) e ora continua a spostare in avanti la data per una verifica finale. Prima inidcò fine settembre, poi fine ottobre, ora si andrà a dicembre e poi si continuerà temporeggiando. Una prova di debolezza straordinaria e di cecità assoluta che Obama sta dando al mondo, dimostrando però di essere pienamente meritevole del Nobel per la Pace. Come el Baradei. [qui]

Links:
Arab agreement with Israel on the Iran nuclear bomb project and concomitant disagreement with the Obama Administration on that issue.
Curiously, while the American president, Mr Obama, seems to be consciously allowing Iran to develop a nuclear bomb, some Europeans, so often derided by Americans in the past for softness on threats to Western civilization, find that it is Obama and his administration who are soft on the threat represented by Ahmadinajad's Iran, not only Carlo Panella in Italy but in France, President Sarkozy, Francois Thual, Richard Darmon, Michel Gurfinkiel and others.

Several years ago I wrote here that it seemed that nobody really important in the West wanted to stop the Iranian bomb and therefore, that that bomb would become real. Unfortunately, my ominous prophecy was right. I don't always want to be right [also see here]

UPDATING12-10-2009
Barry Rubin on Obama's collaboration in building the Iranian nuclear bomb [here]
Prof Jean-Pierre Bensimon argues that "the cost of a nuclear Iran is certainly infinitely greater than what Western experts now assign to it" while "an ideology of appeasement is now winning a decisive victory among the Western decision-makers," including Obama [in French ici]
Ari Shavit of HaArets faults Obama's leadership [here]. ". . . Obama is liable to leave our children a world in a state of nuclear vertigo. If the Nobel laureate does not want to be remembered as the leader in whose term of office the nuclear genie escaped from the bottle . . . must gain his composure immediately. He must use the little time remaining to lead a resolute campaign against the extremist forces acquiring nuclear capability."
12-14-2009 A document in Farsi describing a detonator for a nuclear bomb said to have been found [here]
12-17-2009 Carlo Panella writes [qui] that Obama should stop thinking that harassing Israel will solve the problem of the Iranian nuclear bomb project.
12-19-09 Former French official Olivier Debouzy in the Wall Street Journal [here]

Sarkozy Tries to Bring Obama back down to Earth

One blogger wrote that Sarkozy "emasculated" Obama at the special Security Council meeting last Thursday in New York, that was supposed to be devoted to avoiding nuclear proliferation. I would not go so far as that blogger, but it seems to me that Sarkozy embarassed the American president, in remarks that Sarkozy apparently made in sincere exasperation after listening to Obama talk about universal nuclear disarmament as his dream when the current problem, the immediate problem, is the obtaining of nuclear bombs by Iran and North Korea.

Sarkozy said:

Mr President Obama, I support the outstretched arm of the Americans.
What have these proposals for dialogue brought to the international community?
Nothing.
More enriched uranium, more centrifuges, and to top it off, last but not least [Sarkozy's words in English], a declaration by the Iranian leaders proposing to erase a member of the United Nations from the map. There is a time when the facts are stubborn and one must take decisions. If we want a world without nuclear weapons on the way, let us not accept violations of the international rules. [additional text translated here][CNN video]

And in the original French:

Monsieur Président Obama, je soutiens la main tendue des Américains.
Qu'ont amené à la communauté internationale ces propositions de dialogue?
Rien. Plus d’uranium enrichi, plus de centrifugeuses, et de surcroît, last but not least [en anglais], une déclaration des dirigeants iraniens proposant de rayer de la carte un membre de l’Organisation des Nations Unies. Il y a un moment où les faits sont têtus et il faut prendre des décisions. Si nous voulons un monde sans armes nucléaires à l’arrivée, n’acceptons pas la violation des règles internationale. [L'article sur ce suject sur L'Express, 25 Septembre 2009, ici]

At least somebody among the world's political leaders, understands reality. While Obama avoided talking about how to deal with Iran, which violates its signature on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, speaking more generally instead about "a world without nuclear weapons," Sarkozy was quite specific. He mentioned Iran's violation of international law referring implicitly to both its violation of its signature on the Non-Proliferation Treaty and to its threat to destroy Israel, whereas threats against other states are also forbidden by the UN Charter.

The American people probably did not realize what problems they were going to get into by electing President Obama. With all his delays and postponed deadlines and evasion of the issue, one might think that he wants Iran to get nuclear bombs!! Zbig Brzezinski would be proud of his protégé.
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Previous posts on the Iranian Bomb project at Emet m'Tsiyon:
Arab states too oppose an Iranian Bomb [here] & US delegate to the IAEA (Int'l Atomic Energy Agency) talks a good game warning of Iranian deception in working towards a bomb, but the Bush Administration does little concrete against the Iranian Bomb project [here]
Sarkozy govt in France more evenhanded, less pro-Arab than before [here]