Tag Archives: moral equivalence

The Failed Nuclear Deal

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This is what President Barack Obama and his State Department Secretary, John Kerry, have foisted off on us in an allegedly interim deal with the Iranians concerning the latter’s nuclear weapons program:

Iran committed to:

  • halt enrichment above a 5% threshold
  • dismantle the technical connections required to enrich uranium above 5%
  • neutralize its stockpile of near 20% enriched uranium
  • halt progress on its enrichment capacity
  • construction on the plutonium reactor at Arak will “halt”
  • increased transparency and intrusive monitoring

What Iran has in place:

  • 18,000 centrifuges installed
  • more than 10,000 operating
  • some number of tons of low-enriched uranium
  • 440 pounds of higher-enriched uranium (roughly a bomb’s worth) in a form that can be converted relatively quickly to fissile warhead material

The P5+1 (US, Russia, PRC, UK, France, plus Germany) committed to:

  • not impose any new sanctions
  • suspend sanctions on “certain sectors” of Iran’s economy
  • unfreeze $4.2 billion in revenue from oil sales if Iran meets “other conditions.”  These last two easily can run over $7 billion in total

Obama summarized the remaining sanctions this way:

The broader architecture of sanctions will remain in place, and we will continue to enforce them vigorously[.]

Let’s review the bidding here.  Iran has agreed to stop enriching above a purity, and the UN gets to watch.  We’ve seen already the effectiveness of the UN at watching weapons programs.

Iran’s dismantling?  They’ll unplug some plugs, clip some wires, and call it a day.  OK, that’s an exaggeration; Iran has promised, essentially, to shorten its centrifuge cascade at the 5% threshold.  The simplicity of a centrifuge cascade, though, is illustrated in Figures 6 and 7 in a unit of Dr Frank Settle’s description of Nuclear Chemistry, located here.  Settle has this to say, in particular:

Cascades of individual centrifuges constructed to produce LEU [Low enriched uranium] for reactors can be easily reconfigured to produce HEU [Highly enriched uranium] for weapons.

LEU typically is uranium enriched to less than 20%; it’s a simple matter of adjusting the cascade length to stop at 5%.  Keep in mind, now, that Iran agreed to dismantle, not to destroy.  The components will remain in Iran’s possession; the pipings, etc., necessary to regenerate the longer cascades in order to resume weapons grade enrichment will remain an easy matter to reconnect.  And they have 8-ish thousand centrifuges with which to set up additional cascades, with which to accelerate their “5%” uranium production.  But Iran promises….

Iran will retain its tons of existing LEU—and that 5% is the critical base, the hardest stage of enrichment; everything after that is just those cascades repeating a process.  However, Iran promises to neutralize its near-HEU by combining it with Oxygen to make the HEU into an oxide.  This, though, not only is a chemical reaction, relatively simple to reverse, if not entirely cheap (but see what we’re giving the Iranians, below), the oxide is just a standard intermediate step in getting from uranium ore to reactor- or weapons-grade metal.  The HEU will be entirely straightforward to recover.

And the Iranians promise to stop “progress.”  OK….

In return for these…promises…and letting the UN “watch,” we’re giving the Iranian government a ton of money.  Money with which to reverse that neutralization; money with which to reconnect those centrifuge cascades and to generate additional ones; money with which actually to develop the engineering capacity to assemble a deliverable warhead (which, recall, requires no missiles—although Iran now will get a taste of money with which to continue that development—but only a train car or a collection of suitcases separately carried into the target zone); money with which to fund its terror operations, its support of its Syrian and Iraqi operations; etc; etc; etc.

Oh, and Obama will “vigorously enforce” the remaining sanctions, and they’re reversible.  The first is risible: he’s never vigorously enforced; he’s been dragged kicking and screaming to any sanctions at all.

Moreover, any reversal will be strictly an American one, if it happens at all.  Neither the PRC nor Russia will agree to re-ratchet sanctions, and the UK government, like our own, has no stomach for stern measures of any sort on the world stage—a natural outcome of an insistence on moral equivalence.  Germany will simply do what it’s done since 2003: sit on the sidelines and cluck.  France might be willing to act unilaterally, but that’s a small, lone voice in the wilderness.

This is a terrible “deal,” and the Israelis and most Americans are wholly justified in demurring from it.  But we have “peace” in our time.

 

NB: the bulk of this was cross-posted a bit ago on Ricochet, a site well worth frequenting outside its paywall, and even more worth frequenting for the modest subscription fee.

Our Offensive Constitution

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So says the city of Seattle.

An internal memo at Seattle City Hall is causing quite a stir.  It suggests government workers no longer use the terms “citizen[….]”  According to the Office for Civil Rights, the terms are potentially offensive….

Our Constitution has this, though:

Article I, Sect 2: No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.

And

Article I, Sect 3: No person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.

And

Article II, Sect 1: No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President….

And

Article IV, Sect 2: The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.

And

11th Amendment: The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.

And

14th Amendment: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States….

But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

And

15th Amendment: The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

And

19th Amendment: The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

And

24th Amendment: The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.

And

26th Amendment: The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.

This evil document is filled with that hateful word.  There ought to be a law.

These…officials…also say “brown bag” lunches are offensive, too, but that’s a separate bit of idiocy.

YGTBSM

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In another demonstration of the Obama administration’s support for our Middle East allies, his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, said at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy last Friday that Israel is suspicious of Palestinians and doesn’t care enough about their plight.

Passing up no opportunity to demonstrate the administration’s support, Clinton added

I’m not making excuses for the missed opportunities of the Israelis, or the lack of generosity, the lack of empathy that I think goes hand-in-hand with the suspicion….  So, yes, there is more that the Israelis need to do to really demonstrate that they do understand the pain of an oppressed people in their minds, and they want to figure out, within the bounds of security and a Jewish democratic state, what can be accomplished[.]

Not a word about the “lack of generosity, the lack of empathy” from the terrorists whose only goal is to butcher Israelis and their children.  Not a word about there being “more that the [Palestinians] need to do to really demonstrate that they do understand the pain of a people [who are the objects of their terrorism] in their minds.”

And this Progressive administration insists, with a straight face, that they fully support Israel.  And they cynically elide the fact that with the UN’s recent vote, the Oslo accords have been abrogated, and so there is no one with whom to negotiate for the Israelis.

Obama’s Hypocrisy

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This from Bret Stephens, in The Wall Street Journal [emphasis mine].

“Hasa Diga Eebowai” is the hit number in Broadway’s hit musical “The Book of Mormon,” which won nine Tony awards last year.  What does the phrase mean? I can’t tell you, because it’s unprintable in a family newspaper.

[I]f you can afford to shell out several hundred bucks for a seat, then you can watch a Mormon missionary get his holy book stuffed—well, I can’t tell you about that, either….

The “Book of Mormon”—a performance of which Hillary Clinton attended last year, without registering a complaint—comes to mind as the administration falls over itself denouncing “Innocence of Muslims.”  This is a film that may or may not exist; whose makers are likely not who they say they are; whose actors claim to have known neither the plot nor purpose of the film; and which has never been seen by any member of the public except as a video clip on the Internet.

No matter.  The film, the administration says, is “hateful and offensive” (Susan Rice), “reprehensible and disgusting” (Jay Carney) and, in a twist, “disgusting and reprehensible” (Hillary Clinton).  Mr. Carney, the White House spokesman, also lays sole blame on the film for inciting the riots that have swept the Muslim world and claimed the lives of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three of his staff in Libya.

So let’s get this straight: In the consensus view of modern American liberalism, it is hilarious to mock Mormons and Mormonism but outrageous to mock Muslims and Islam.  Why?  Maybe it’s because nobody has ever been harmed, much less killed, making fun of Mormons.

RTWT.  There’s more, about the assault on American free speech by this American government, and about the necessary mutuality of respect.

Stephens centers his article on the behaviors of liberalism and progressivism, but Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama is the head Progressive, and his silence on his movement’s hypocrisy is deafening.

Who Has Israel’s Back?

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Not the Obama administration.  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lately pressed Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama to make clear what—if anything—would trigger a concrete response to Iranian efforts to obtain nuclear weapons—an effort that is very near to success.  Netanyahu also said that the Obama administration and other Western “allies,” by failing to draw a bright red line, lack the moral authority to press Israel not to preemptively attack Iran.

If Iran knows that there’s no deadline, what will it do?  Exactly what it’s doing: it’s continuing without any interference towards obtaining nuclear weapons capability and from there nuclear bombs[.]

Obama insists that concrete measures are unnecessary: a campaign of financial pressure and diplomacy are sufficient.  Never mind that he’s waived key parts of the sanctions for 20 of Iran’s primary trading partners—including Russia and the People’s Republic of China.  Indeed, Obama flatly refuses to set red lines.  He doesn’t want to be committed to actual action.

Netanyahu has asked to meet with Obama on the matter while in New York, or in DC, were that more convenient to Obama.  Obama, though, refused the meeting.  No, the candidate would rather be out campaigning than doing the foreign policy part of his job.

Israeli officials confirmed to Fox News that the White House had rejected their request.  A White House spokesman also confirmed that Obama is not expected to meet with Netanyahu anywhere, citing “scheduling conflicts.”  Further, according to the spokesman,

They’re simply not in the city at the same time.

Never mind the offer to be in a city at the same time.  And more weasel-words from the candidate, through his surrogates: Tuesday, they released a statement denying that any formal offer was made for a meeting in the capital—without saying whether an offer was made for a meeting elsewhere, like New York.

Contrary to reports in the press, there was never a request for Prime Minister Netanyahu to meet with President Obama in Washington, nor was a request for a meeting ever denied[.]

No formal request.  And no denial that the informal, impromptu request was made and rejected.

Further, the statement said that while the guy who occasionally sits in the President’s chair will be addressing the UN General Assembly and the Clinton Global Initiative, he will not be having one-on-one meetings with world leaders; this should not be seen as a snub of Netanyahu.

Sure.  The leader of a nation whose very existence is threatened from a nuclear assault is just one among many leaders.  No big deal.

Sounds like excuse-making to me.  Obamatalk.

Former Ambassador John Bolton has a slightly different take:

I don’t see it so much as a snub as a horrible, substantive mistake in American foreign policy.

After four years, this guy still isn’t ready for the big leagues?  And he said what about Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney’s foreign policy readiness?