Category Archives: defense policy

The Arrogance of Democrat Power

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CIA Director John Brennan had this to say at the Harvard Institute of Politics regarding the nuclear weapons deal “negotiated” with Iran:

I must tell you the individuals who say this deal provides a pathway for Iran to a bomb are being wholly disingenuous, in my view, if they know the facts, understand what’s required for a program[.]

How dare you criticize your Betters!?

Sit down, and shut up.

As The Wall Street Journal put it,

Mr Brennan’s naked public partisanship harms the CIA by making whatever it now says about Iran simply unbelievable.

But remember this in 2016.

Because, Shut Up

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President Barack Obama really doesn’t like it when folks disagree with him.

Obama said that Arizona Senator John McCain (R, AZ) had suggested Secretary of State John Kerry’s explanations of the framework agreement in Iran were “somehow less trustworthy” than those of Iran’s supreme leader.

Never mind that Kerry released a FAQ on the framework “deal” (after it had been…negotiated…and before the proposed terms had been discussed with Congress) that’s radically different from what the Iranians thought they had tentatively agreed. Released by a man who once, in public and sworn testimony, accused our military of wholesale, routine war crimes. A man who tried to avoid his home state’s luxury taxes by berthing his multi-million dollar yacht in another state. Yeah, Kerry is entirely trustworthy.

Obama also renewed complaints about the 47 Republican senators who sent a letter to Iran’s leaders saying that any deal the Iranians made with the US would not necessarily hold up after Obama has left the office.

Because telling the truth about an Executive Agreement is such a terrible thing, especially when the other party to that agreement appears to have such a deep misunderstanding of the depth and durability of it. An agreement which that self-same Kerry said in testimony before Congress was not binding because what’s contemplated is only an Executive Agreement.

Never mind, too, that Obama is pulling out all the stops to prevent Congress from passing on the agreement, which would make it a binding one.

Obama added, in the wide-eyed innocence that only he can muster

I don’t understand why it is that everybody’s working so hard to anticipate failure[.]

Maybe it’s because the thing can only fail: it in no way requires Iran to stop working toward nuclear weapons acquisition, it in no way prevents Iran from working toward nuclear weapons acquisition, it in no way has even a serious inspection régime. Of course the better policy wonk than his policy wonks knows this, which only goes to show that Obama is as trustworthy as his Secretary of State.

Obama’s rank partisanship really “needs to stop.” Oh, wait. Just shut up.

A Problem with Censorship

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[Ukraine’s] Parliament voted Thursday to ban Soviet as well as Nazi symbols here….

Lawmakers voted 254-0 in favor of the bill, which outlawed any “public rejection of the criminal nature” of the Soviet or Nazi regimes in Ukraine, a former Soviet republic that was overrun by the Germans in World War II.

Their heart is in the right place.

Yuriy Lutsenko, a senior Member of Parliament with the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, added this about the legislation:

Symbols including five-pointed stars and hammers and sickles will disappear from the streets of Ukrainian cities[.]

But the USSR’s flag isn’t the only thing that uses the symbology of a five-pointed star. So do the United States flag and the European Union flag—the latter which Ukraine would like to join.

This illustrates a problem with government censorship. Leaving aside the fundamental inappropriateness of censorship by governments, it’s tough for government to censor narrowly enough to block the target without also blocking the friends.

Roll Call Votes

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Senator Bob Corker (R, TN) has a bill in his Foreign Relations Committee that would require President Barack Obama to submit the deal he’s “negotiating” with Iran concerning the latter’s nuclear weapons program to Congress for approval or disapproval. His bill is was cosponsored by a large number of Democrats, so large that a week ago, he had 64 Senate votes for its passage.

Those Democrats are disappearing faster than fog in the West Texas sun as Obama begins turning up the heat on them. In their finest Saul Alinsky fashion, though, they’re covering their fade with a move to amend and gut the bill. As Kimberly Strassel put it in her op-ed at the link,

The goal of these amendments is to render the Corker legislation useless. Yet if Republicans balk, watch for Senate Democrats to howl that the GOP is acting in a partisan fashion, or refusing to be flexible. And watch for those same Senate Democrats to then use those complaints as their pretext for voting against the legislation.

And

[I]t appears that Mr Corker’s only path to 67—if that is even possible—is to so water-down his own bill as to make it useless. Does he want a meaningless 67-vote victory? The better route is to shoot for 60, send a principled bill to the president’s desk, and force the commander in chief and his defenders to solely face the consequences of a bad Iran deal.

Indeed. And Corker should demand a roll call vote in his committee, and Republicans should demand a roll call votes on the Senate floor, both on passage and on the veto override vote.

And that information should be bruited about in the 2016 campaign season—including in the Democrat primaries.

Deal, or No Deal?

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It seems there are two published versions of the nuclear arms agreement framework just “negotiated” with Iran: the Obama administration’s and Iran’s. Here’s a summary, via Fox News at the link, of the highlights of the two versions:

Regarding sanctions:

US: The US fact sheet says: “US and EU [and UN] nuclear-related sanctions will be suspended after the IAEA has verified that Iran has taken all of its key nuclear-related steps. If at any time Iran fails to fulfill its commitments, these sanctions will snap back into place.”

Iran: The (translated) Iran fact sheet says: “According to the reached solutions, after the implementation of the Comprehensive Plan of Joint Action, all of the UN resolutions will be revoked and all of the multilateral economic and financial sanctions by the EU and the unilateral ones by the US will be annulled.”

The weasel-wording cynic in me, though, can see a serious misunderstanding rather than an entirely differing version in this disconnect. “After implementation” could be seen as “upon agreement and placement into force,” and it could be seen as “fully complied.”

Regarding centrifuges:

US: The US fact sheet says: “Iran will not use its IR-2, IR-4, IR-5, IR-6, or IR-8 models to produce enriched uranium for at least ten years. Iran will engage in limited research and development with its advanced centrifuges, according to a schedule and parameters which have been agreed to by the P5+1.”

Iran: The Iran (translated) Iran fact sheet says: “Iran will continue its research and development on advanced machines and will continue the initiation and completion phases of the research and development process of IR-4, IR-5, IR-6, and IR-8 centrifuges during the 10 year period of the Comprehensive Plan for Joint Action.”

Of course this means Iran will use those carefully specified centrifuge models—as well as others—to enrich. At the least, “limited R&D” and all phases of “R&D” involving those models—and others—require testing in the enriching process for which they’re built. This is no mere misunderstanding; these statements represent two entirely different agreements.

Regarding their uranium stockpile: 

US: The US fact sheet says: “Iran has agreed to not enrich uranium over 3.67% for at least 15 years,” and Iran will “reduce its current stockpile of about 10,000 kg of low-enriched uranium (LEU) to 300 kg of 3.67% LEU for 15 years.”

Iran: Iran’s (translated) Iran fact sheet says: “The timeframe of the Comprehensive Plan of Joint Action regarding Iran’s enrichment program will be 10 years.” It then refers to the enrichment at Natanz occurring during this period.

Ten years? Some nebulous 10-15 years? This is no misunderstanding, either.

Regardless of the time frame, the only way to verify this is with inspections. The inspections, though, are entirely on prior notice and only to specified locations (yes, including those that might be newly discovered (or become suspicious). Iran is allowed to litigate in an international court those locations, too. On top of that, neither statement contains any remarks about how violations will be corrected.

Just what exactly was it that our guys were “negotiating” with Iran’s guys? Were they even in the same building in Lausanne?