Category Archives: defense policy

Integrity, Take Two

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The House Oversight Committee issued the subpoenas to two agents who are familiar with the March 4 episode, which occurred as authorities were investigating a possible bomb threat while President Obama was in the residence. During the investigation, two agents, who were reportedly drinking that night, nearly drove over the object in question, which turned out to be a book.

One of the subpoenaed agents was on the ground at the White House that night, sources said.

The subpoenas became necessary when Secret Service Director Joseph Clancy refused to allow them to testify voluntarily.

Naturally, Jeh Johnson, Homeland Security Secretary, and whose department owns the Secret Service, is objecting.

Director Clancy and I must fight to protect [the agents] against the visibility, public glare, and inevitable second-guessing, of a congressional hearing.

Sure. Because everything Johnson, Clancy, and the Homeland Security generally do is entirely above board, while Congress cannot be trusted. Neither can the American people be trusted. Far more importantly, the Secret Service must never be questioned, must never be second-guessed.

Johnson went on:

I, too, want to know what happened on the night of March 4. This is why the Department’s Inspector General is conducting a thorough investigation into the matter.

Of course, we can’t know there’s an internal investigation. Johnson and Clancy are zealously keeping whatever it is they’re doing—or not doing—secret. Even from our elected representatives.

Obama’s Iran Nuclear Weapons Deal

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Here’s a “fact sheet” on the thing, via The Washington Post. In quotes because Iran considers the thing to be so much spin, and they don’t agree to it. Some highlights below, with my interpretation in italics.

  • Iran has agreed to reduce by approximately two-thirds its installed centrifuges. Iran will go from having about 19,000 installed today to 6,104 installed under the deal, with only 5,060 of these enriching uranium for 10 years. All 6,104 centrifuges will be IR-1s, Iran’s first-generation centrifuge. Iran will go on enriching uranium, just at an allegedly slower pace.
  • Iran has agreed to not enrich uranium over 3.67% for at least 15 years. See below regarding verification
  • Iran has agreed to not build any new facilities for the purpose of enriching uranium for 15 years. Iran agreed to this years ago, too; Fordo was only recently discovered, after it had been in operation for several years.
  • Iran has agreed to convert its Fordow facility so that it is used for peaceful purposes only—into a nuclear, physics, technology, research center. As a research center, it’ll continue to be used for nuclear weapons research.
  • Iran has agreed to not conduct research and development associated with uranium enrichment at Fordow for 15 years. See the bit about verification.
  • The IAEA will have regular access to all of Iran’s nuclear facilities, including to Iran’s enrichment facility at Natanz and its former enrichment facility at Fordow, and including the use of the most up-to-date, modern monitoring technologies. “Regular access:” on notice, with plenty of time to “get ready” for the inspection. “All of Iran’s…facilities:” that they’ve revealed.
  • S. and E.U. nuclear-related sanctions will be suspended after the IAEA has verified that Iran has taken all of its key nuclear-related steps. A prompt end to sanctions after IAEA is promptly fooled. See verification above.

There’s nothing in this framework that prevents Iran from developing and building nuclear weapons. Maybe—maybe—this slows them down a little bit.

The community organizer and the motorboat skipper got played by the JayVee’s coach.

Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Deal

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President Barack Obama says that any agreed deal would increase the time needed by Iran to get sufficient weapons grade uranium sufficient to start building bombs out to a year or more.

That, though, means that Iran will be allowed to build nuclear bombs. Obama plainly knows this.

And it’s a far cry from not allowing this terrorist-sponsoring state, this polity with its core goal of wiping Israel from the map, to obtain nuclear weapons. About four of which would be sufficient to destroy Israel, not just as a nation, but as a society.

And Obama drags out the “negotiations” past yet another ObamaDeadline.

The Arrogance of Obama

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It’s breathtaking scope is made manifest in his “negotiations” with Congress on the matter of his “negotiations” with Iran over the latter’s nuclear weapons program.

“We’re open to talking to Congress about what they might do, how they might be heard on the Iran deal and how they might play an oversight role,” a senior Obama administration official said. “Some people in Congress will certainly want to take some vote.”

Awfully decent of Obama to be willing to seem to consider allowing Congress to do its Constitutional job.

Congress has mandated roles to play in international agreements; it’s required to play them. Congress, in the person of the Senate, must formally, and positively, approve any international agreement or that agreement is unenforceable and functionally nonbinding—it’s only a Presidential agreement. Congress must fund the agreement or it cannot have effect.

Of course, Obama knows this, hence the arrogance of his minion’s statement.

There’s nothing to discuss here. Congress must take the steps it must take, and it must stop wasting time on Obama’s idle chit-chat with it. Disapprove the issue of the current “negotiations” with Iran as the carefully leaked details of that describe it. Pass severe sanctions on the Iranian régime and on Iran when the “negotiations” fail, as will be the case even should the current outline be accepted by the Obama administration and the mullahs. Pass them again over Obama’s veto. There’s nothing here to discuss with him.

The Left Misunderstands

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Iran has a uranium enrichment facility at Fordo, a bunkered facility that Iran had built years ago in violation of its then international agreements and UN resolutions. It was only discovered in 2009, after it had been in operation for years.

The present nuclear weapons deal being “negotiated” with Iran would allow enrichment to continue at Fordo, under…inspection…, but with only several hundred centrifuges spinning.

Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress are objecting to this “deal” coming out of Lausanne, Switzerland, insisting that we’re giving away too much to Iran’s weapons program and getting too little in return, especially in the way of assurances—real block, not just “rules” and “agreements” and “protocols”—that the remaining facilities won’t, in fact, be turned to production of highly enriched uranium and the fission bombs that can be built from it.

Daryl Kimball, Executive Director of the Arms Control Association in Washington, though, thinks this is a good deal.

I think Senator Graham and Senator Menendez [leaders of the objections in the Senate] need to take a step back and put this development in a broader context. The key to Fordo is that we do not want this to be a facility with industrial-scale uranium enrichment and this report suggests they are moving in that direction.

And therein lies a bright, clear illustration of the Left’s lack of understanding of what’s happening. The key to Fordo is that it should not exist at all: its construction and operation are a demonstration that Iran cannot be trusted with any deal regarding its nuclear enrichment “program.”

Any such deal must include shutting down Iranian centrifuges—every single one of them—confiscating all uranium enriched above 5% (above that is not needed for power generating nuclear reactors), and requiring Iran to import its nuclear reactor fuel (as so many other nuclear power generating nations around the world do). Any such deal must have stern verification measures in place, also: an international inspecting presence permanently in place, able to go where it will, able to go there on no notice at all, and able to confiscate the produce of any violation. Severe sanctions to punish such violations also must be in place and triggered automatically on discovery of violation.

Full stop.