Menendez comes out against the Iran deal
That is no surprise. Menendez is a Democrat from New Jersey, and his opposition to Obama’s policy on Iran has been vocal and strong for a long, long time. Along with his opposition to Obama’s Cuba policy, this has caused him to be under indictment by the DOJ for campaign financing violations (read about that here).
It’s worthwhile to look at the speech Menendez just gave on why the Iran deal is so very bad:
I recall in the early days of the Administration’s overtures to Iran, asking Secretary of State, John Kerry, at a meeting of Senators, about dismantling Arak, Iran’s plutonium reactor. His response was swift and certain. He said: ”˜They will either dismantle it or we will destroy it.’
“I remember that our understanding was that the Fordow facility was to be closed ”“ that it was not necessary for a peaceful civilian nuclear program to have an underground enrichment facility. That the Iranians would have to come absolutely clean about their weaponization activities at Parchin and agree to promise anytime anywhere inspections.
“We now know all of that fell by the wayside. But what we cannot dismiss is that we have now abandoned our long-held policy of preventing nuclear proliferation and are now embarked ”“ not on preventing nuclear proliferation ”“ but on managing or containing it — which leaves us with a far less desirable, less secure, and less certain world order. So, I am deeply concerned that this is a significant shift in our nonproliferation policy, and about what it will mean in terms of a potential arms race in an already dangerous region.
“While I have many specific concerns about this agreement, my overarching concern is that it requires no dismantling of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and only mothballs that infrastructure for 10 years. Not even one centrifuge will be destroyed under this agreement. Fordow will be repurposed, and Arak redesigned…
“This deal does not require Iran to destroy or fully decommission a single uranium enrichment centrifuge. In fact, over half of Iran’s currently operating centrifuges will continue to spin at its Natanz facility. The remainder, including more than 5,000 operating centrifuges and nearly 10,000 not yet functioning, will merely be disconnected and transferred to another hall at Natanz, where they could be quickly reinstalled to enrich uranium.
“And yet we, along with our allies, have agreed to lift the sanctions and allow billions of dollars to flow back into Iran’s economy. We lift sanctions, but — even during the first 10 years of the agreement — Iran will be allowed to continue R&D activity on a range of centrifuges ”“ allowing them to improve their effectiveness over the course of the agreement.
Oh, just read the whole thing.
The gist of the arguments against Menendez’s points seem to be this: (a) there are no alternatives other than war, and (b) if we’re kind to the Iranian leaders and help Iran financially, this will empower the moderate faction there over time, and Iran will enter the community of nations as a peaceful rational actor.
Neither appears to be true, however. But if this deal stands, I certainly hope I’m wrong about the latter.
[ADDENDUM: I also wanted to call your attention to this sentence that occur towards the very end of Menendez’s speech, in case you didn’t get that far:
I have looked into my own soul and my devotion to principle may once again lead me to an unpopular course, but if Iran is to acquire a nuclear bomb, it will not have my name on it.]
No alternative except war and if we’re kind to the Iranian leaders and help Iran financially, this will empower the moderate faction there over time, and Iran will enter the community of nations as a peaceful rational actor. So goes the deep strategeric thinking in this administration.
And if the regime does not soften and change its goals of the destruction of Israel and the Great Satan? Why, of course, it’s either war or surrender. And that to a much more powerful, capable Iran. How is this not like the Munich agreement?
As John Stuart Mill said, “War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”
Obama and Kerry, people who think nothing is worse than war. They are miserable creatures who are free because of men and women much better than they.
And just where does the hero-of-the-day Trump stand on the Iran deal? Well, unlike the other candidates for the Republican presidential slot, he says he won’t rip up the Iran deal if elected. Even MSNBC says that position would get “any other candidate in the field torn to shreds” and praises Trump’s stand as “eminently sensible”.
Good piece at American Thinker on this: Trump shows dangerous naivete on Iran deal
Obama already burned Menendez so there’s no reason for Menendez to support Obama.
Is it possible that we now have someone strutting on the political stage who is more narcissistic than the boychild? The idea that the donald believes he can negotiate with the mullahs to make the ‘deal’ better should be a big clue to his supporters than this bombastic jerk is a dangerous wannabe president.
The alternative is Iran compliant with a strict standard of disarmament.
Senator Menendez is basically advocating for a disarmament standard for Iran on par with the Gulf War ceasefire’s UNSCR 687. The disarmament standard for Iraq remains the gold standard.
Keep in mind that Operation Iraqi Freedom succeeded in bringing Iraq into compliance with UNSCR 687 when Saddam failed his “final opportunity to comply” (UNSCR 1441) with Hans Blix and UNMOVIC finding “about 100 unresolved disarmament issues” in the UNSCR 1441 inspections.
The success of OIF should have strengthened enforcement of disarmament standards elsewhere.
Unfortunately, despite the success of OIF, Senator Menendez was among those who opposed the enforcement of the “governing standard of Iraqi compliance” (UNSCR 1441), thus undermining enforcement of further strict disarmament, in this case with Iran.
President Clinton was correct when he stated (February 17, 1998):
With Iran, Clinton’s warning was reified when those who advocated for “fail to respond” to Iraq’s evident noncompliance came into power.
My advice to Senators Menendez and Schumer, and other Democrats who oppose Obama’s Iran deal is they must set the record straight on Operation Iraqi Freedom and vindicate Presidents Clinton and Bush’s enforcement of UNSCR 687.
Because if Clinton and Bush were wrong on Iraq, then Obama is right on Iran. And vice versa. As long as the Dems/Left/Russian false narrative of OIF is the prevailing view in the zeitgeist, then Obama’s Iran deal is justified.
This Iran issue is weighed at the premise level about Iraq, as simple as that.
It does not matter — except perhaps to Obama’s vanity — what the Senate does with the Iran agreement. It is not a treaty so it does not need the Senate’s approval, and Obama has already said he will implement it through executive decree, especially since the UN has approved it.
So just why are Obama and Kerry pushing so hard for Senate approval? To try to lock a future president into continuation of the agreement (which won’t matter a whit when Iran detonates its first nuclear device) and so they can pretend it has the power and authority of a treaty.
The Senate should turn it down. Let Obama own it fully, as he does the ACA, the GM bailout, the half a billion dollar grant to Solyndra days before they closed their doors, the bank bailout, “shovel-ready” projects that weren’t, Fast and Furious, the destruction of thousands of serviceable used cars in an attempt to give more business to automakers, and a whole host of other hare-brained policies that will be his legacy.
The Iran nuclear agreement is Fast and Furious to Shiite terrorists. And it will be as much a failure.
Cut to the chase: it’s Munich II // aka Vienna I.
Nothing good can possibly come of it.
It’s the end of non-proliferation — THE bipartisan atomic policy since Truman.
Diddling around with this or that — and Iran — is immaterial compared to the devil that has been set loose.
blert, “Cut to the chase: it’s Munich II // aka Vienna I.”
Just so.
I saw Trump on Fox and he said he would negotiate much tougher terms and cited specific areas including hostages and sanctions. The release of hostages was a pre-condition. The return of any money to Iran was off the table. So, yes, he’d negotiate, but not the way Kerry & Obama did.
Be that as it may, anyone outside of the WH knows this is an appallingly one-sided deal that cedes everything to Iran. Either Obama lives in a fantasy world where he believes ceding everything to your enemies will make them friends, or he is on their side.
We saw that with Russia, where he pulled out our missile defense systems, told the Ukraine to give up nukes and told the Russian President Medvedev that he would have “more flexibility after he was re-elected”. How did that work out? Russia gobbled up the Crimea and launched a war to take over the Ukraine.
Giving Iran free reign in the Middle East only has one outcome: a nuclear arms race and nuclear war.
And that Senator has been indicted by Obama’s DOJ. brave guy.
PatD:
No one but Obama and Kerry and others on the left would negotiate the way Obama and Kerry did with Iran. No one.
Everyone has made much the same criticism as Trump of what they did. There is nothing special about his criticism of them.
But they weren’t really trying to actually negotiate, IMHO. They meant to have a deal, and they didn’t much care what was in it. In that case, the Iranians held all the cards. All of them.
Cornhead:
Well, Menendez has nothing to lose any more, I would guess. They’re already out to get him, and so he may as well stand up for what he thinks is right.
I put this in an “addendum,” but I thought I’d put it here, too.
This sentence occurred towards the very end of Menendez’s speech:
Menendez’s is right. It is a pity so few of his fellow Democrats agree with him, let alone understand what they are agreeing to. But, in the Democrat party, ideology trumps logic.
#11
Yes, but it’s more than that.
It’s not even a deal.
Though, it was meant—that is, scripted—to look as though it was a deal.
And it’s being defended as if it is the ONLY “deal” that could possibly be made.
As such, Obama/Kerry cannot be accused of being feckless, foolish, “outplayed”, reckless, ignorant of history, stupid, naive, out of his league, etc.
All they can really be accused of is not having a good enough script to cover up their giving up the store (AKA perfidy)….Which is why they must try to destroy anyone who stands up and says they’re nekkid; that there’s nothing there;
Certainly the administration’s Iran script is not as effective as Obama’s “we’re-going-to-claim-to-provide-healthcare-for-every-single-American-citizen…(so-that-we-can-actually-destroy-the-middle-class-and-drive-this-country-into-the-ground)”, which, for whatever reason, still seems to have quite a bit of traction.
(To be sure, it exactly doesn’t help that Khameini continues to insult Obama and insist that America, and Israel, must be destroyed, etc., etc.,—-sure, sure, we know he doesn’t really mean it, etc.)
File under: Optics is all.
Correction:
“#11” should be: “NNC at 11:45 p.m.”
Iran deal
https://m.youtube.com/watch?t=312&v=u4FkNbtkgps#
“I have looked into my own soul and my devotion to principle may once again lead me to an unpopular course, but if Iran is to acquire a nuclear bomb, it will not have my name on it.”
I wrote to the esteemed Sens Blumenthal and Murphy and essentially asked them if by supporting this “deal”, could they live with themselves if a Iranian nuke explodes somewhere in the ME, or God forbid, in the US. Could they live with that blood on their hands knowing their vote could have stopped it?
I checked the option on the online form saying I didn’t need a response as I already knew what their response would be. I just wanted to put it out there to them, or more likely to some peon on their staff.
As a NJ resident I never before voted for Menendez; but, I might just start.
I imagine Heitkamp from ND and Manchin from WV will join, but that’s it.
Party over country. That’s the mantra of the Dems.
Pure speculation: In our discussion of all the compromised government employee data, plus Hillary’s email server, the fear is that people could be blackmailed by foreign governments. Putin could show information in a little folder at negotiations and suggest the information would become public if the POTUS/SOS didn’t go along with what he wants.
Perhaps that is what is happening with Iran.
charles Says:
August 19th, 2015 at 8:53 am
As a NJ resident I never before voted for Menendez; but, I might just start.
I’m with you Charles!! I have never agreed with him before….but I’m with him on this one!!!
I’m starting a pool — $50 bucks says Iran announces its bomb the day after Barry O’ leaves office. My brother thinks no, the deal is they wait until Kerry gets his Nobel Peace Prize.
I just have to figure out how to get this on PayPal or something without running afoul of the gambling laws.
Richard – no-one but no-one will take the other side of your bet.
Not even Code Pink.
blert – not even John Kerry?