I wish to be very precise here on this extremely important matter. President Trump has not “decertified” the JCPOA Iran nuclear deal. Now Congress must ultimately be responsible. He has, after a lot of discussion and intervention by his national security team, failed to certify the deal. This is not something that was part of the deal, but an epiphenomenon put in place by the US Congrees as part of a deal agreed to by former President Obama to get the deal through, a matter of every 90 days the US president certifying that Iran is complying with the agreement. Two times running, President Trump certified it, confronted by the hard fact that Iran has been complying with the deal according to every official body in the world. But, he has said he would not certify it, and reportedly he has blown up over this matter with screaming fits his c. So his NatSec team has cooked up this partial save: OK, boy, fail to certify, putting it on Congress to really undo the deal.
In the face of way more to say than I shall here, let me point out odd items most will not. So one of those is a positive. Even if the Congress fails to do what is right and reasonable and keeps the deal going, probably Iran will not pursue an active nuclear weapons acquisition program. There are two reasons for this, which could easily be undone if Trump continues to insanely go after them.
The first is that this whole negotiation with Iran was an unnecessary farce to begin with. Vilayet-al-faqih Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was issuing fatwas against the building of nuclear weapons as far back as the G.W. Bush admin. Pres Bush even accepted two official National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) that declared that Iran was not actively pursuing a nuclear weapons program. He did it twice. The fatwas by Khomeini were the ultimate reason why these hard fought and deeply studied NIEs came forth, representing after all a consensus of every one of 17 plus US intelligence agencies, who have a wide variety of perspectives, some of them almost insanely hawkish. But twice during the G.W. Bush presidency they came together to make this super official certification: Iran did not have an active nuclear weapons program, even though it had one earlier, one that dated back to the Eisenhower admin when the US supported their program under the Shah. But, the bottom line is that while Khamenei is alive, there will be no Iranian nuclear program.
What this means is that ultimately Obama’s massive effort to negotiate a halt to the nonexistent Iranian nuclear program was ultimately a worthless empty exercise, much as I have on occasion praised it. I mean, it was a noble and heroic and difficult effort, Obama supported John Kerry in getting the Russians and the Chinese, as well as the EU and other obvious US allies, to go along with economic sanctions, which actually had an effect, given that Iran is actually a semi-democratic regime, so that even the hardliners associated with Khameini went along and agreed. And beyond Iran, it was a big deal, the UN officially supporting it along with the Russia, China, UK, France, Germany, and the UN Security Council (oh, sorry, a part of the UN), as well as most of the rest of the world, aside from a handful of countries (not to be listed, although in most cases their intel/military support it).
The second is that even given this nonexistent fact that Iran was pursuing a nuclear weapons program, which all the US intel agencies said was the case, and Iran has been in full compliance with the JCPOA agreement as agreed by all observers, including even the senior US officials such as SecDef Mattis before a Congressional committee, Trumps and a few Israeli officials plus some from Saudi Arabia and a few others,Iran has been in full compliance with the agreement. If Trump insists on ending the agreent, he will have only the support of Israel and Saudi Arabia and a few of its immediate neighbors.
Addendum: It would appear that to the extent Trump is even thinking, what he (and those in Israel and Saudi Arabia who support this nonsense) want is “regime change” in Iran. It is not good enough to have a relatively moderate Islamist government that obeys a treaty that limits its nuclear program, which was not directed at weapons in the first place anyway. In this regard they resemble the wildly messed up views of George W. Bush regarding both North Korea and Iraq.
I have posted here on this before, but it remains not widely known, that North Korea was not in violation of the nuclear agreement with it when the WBush admin went after them on the matter. Just as there is nothing in the JCPOA about missiles, there was nothing in the 1994 agreement about uranium enrichment, although most Americans believe the North Koreans were in violation of 1994 due to their enriching uranium. It was about plutonium, and they were following the agreement on that when WBush told South Korea’s leader in March, 2001, to forget about the peace process, which Colin Powell supported, but the neocon hawks led by Cheney and Rumsfeld did not. They wanted to pull a Soviet Union a la Reagan and Bush Senior: regime change. That has not happened and now the North Koreans have nuclear weapons. Imitating this nonsense, Trump is in danger of getting the same outcome, although we can hope that Khameini keeps his fatwas in place at least for awhile.
As it is, while not pursuing a nuclear weapons program and opening to the world seems to be popular in Iran as expressed in their semi-free elections that reelected the government that negotiated the JCPOA, the “Green Movement” does support civilian nuclear power and also Iran maintaining a reasonably strong military to protect against unfriendly neighbors such as the Saudis, whose current leader has openly talked of war against and even in Iran. So, getting them to stop testing missiles and so on is not a likely outcome from any popularly elected government in Iran. If we brought back the Shah, well, maybe, but he is dead, and I doubt the Iranians would accept his son as a leader.
In Iraq, there was a majority ready to take over when semi-democracy was put in place after the US invaded under WBush and overthrew the Saddam dictatorship. Unfortunately, as the then Saudi leadership warned, who convinced Bush Sr. not to go all the way to Baghdad after throwing Saddam out of Kuwait, that majority is Shia and friendly to Iran. So, now Iraq is ruled by people friendly to our supposed super enemy, Iran, and their role in Iraq is one of those things that the Israelis and Saudis are unhappy about, along with their supposed role in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and some other places.
Bottom line is that if WBush had not dumped the Korean peace negotiations and invaded Iraq, our current president would probably be dealing with a less difficult situation in the Persian Gulf and maybe not even be facing a nuclear weapons armed North Korea. But our current president seems bent on doing his best to make sure that future presidents will have to deal with both a nuclear armed North Korea (no way they are giving those babies up, even if Kim Jong Un is overthrown) and a nuclear armed Iran, not to mention a world that simply mistrusts US leaders and has not interest in any diplomatic negotiations with the US about anything.
Barkley Rosser
The Zionists want to continue the “game” they started in 2003. This is the real move behind Donald Trump and the allies. The jews have financed so many “scams” like “Richard Spencer” to “Bannon is a anti-semite”, they got you twisting in the wind.
The Adelson trust wants the crusade. Period. Russia wants monetary control via the Russian Central bank controlled by de Rothschild and China wants political control of the world. That is the price of doing business, much like Trumps money laundering crap in eastern europe. Amazing how “conservatives” are being duped like socialists were with “Marxist-Leninism” back in the day. The original neo-cons were way to “kosher”. This is the same game and it is dirtier. Every time you call Trump a “white supremacist”, they are clapping and laughing historically waiting for Sheldon’s funeral the day after they slaughter millions of Shia.
My view though, is the la li lu le lo is using them to kick the Republicans out of Congress. Part of why they let the Zionists control the news cycle during the election and the “CROOKED HILLIARY”!!!!!!! meme to take hold en mass. They gave the Republicans great power in 2011 and they dropped the ball. Now the payment is due.
Bert has multiple personalities and such ….
Should Americans really care much about this? As I recall President Obama decided not to get it ratified as a treaty obligation and instead accepted an unusual arrangement where Congress voted it down, but not by veto-proof margins and it went forward on that pretty weak basis. All the partners to JCPOA understood that the United States was not committing itself, but rather the Obama administration. A Democratic President didn’t care enough to do it right and his Republican successor never supported it. Forget Iran for a minute and try to think of the case that America ever went along with this. The body that is supposed to ratify with 2/3 vote not only did not hit that consensus but didn’t make it to 50%.
Eric:
2015, what had happened in 2015?
geez
Bert,
I do not generally reply to drooling anti-Semites as you appear to be, but I shall grant that the campaign by Bibi Netanyahu to get Republicans in the US to go along with his stupid and hysterical anti-Iran campaign, which he has been at since the early 90s and which is opposed by major figures in the Israeli intel-military establishment, has been successful.
Eric,
Sorry, but getting on Obama’s case for not trying to get things out of a GOP-dominated Congress that was committed to opposing every single thing he proposed is simply disingenuous. As it is, at the time he proposed JCPOA, popular support for it ran 2 to 1, even if he could not get a majority in the Senate to support it. And current support for it is 54% even in the US, quite aside from the nearly unanimous (missing three countries) support for it abroad, including among all the signatories, given that Iran is clearly in compliance with the agreement, well, sorry, even 60% of Americans two years thought they would not adhere to it, but they have.
Barkley,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMIA_bombing
Mike,
I am well aware that the real reason Israeli hawks do not like Iran has nothing to do with its possible nuclear weapons and everything to do with its support of Hezbollah, which, let us note, is not Iran.
Regarding Hezbollah, it indeed did carry out terror attacks against Jews and Israelis in the 90s, especially in Argentina for some strange reason. However, it changed its strategy and approach some time ago. There have been no terror attacks by it since its war with Israel in 2006, when it fired lots of missiles into Israel when Israel invaded southern Lebanon to retrieve two Israeli soldiers kidnapped by Hezbollah. Since then Hezbollah has entered the Lebanese government, indeed is probably the most powerful faction of the government. There have been no terror attacks since 2006.
It is also ironic, of course, that prior to the 1982 invasion of Shia-dominated southern Lebanon, the people there tended to be largely pro-Israeli, certainly more so than most other Arabs. That invasion changed that view and led to the founding of Hezbollah.
BTW, it is my observation that what really has Israelis bothered about Hezbollan is not terror attacks, none of which have happened for a long time, but the fact that the israeli military found it hard to defeat them during that war in 2006. So their real complaint is that Iranian arms are supporting the only hostile power nearby that they are unable to just immediately and easily crush, which makes them nervous understandably..
But does this justify the US abrogating an agreement that Iran is keeping about nuclear weapons? I do not think so.
Barkley,
Of course it does not. One of the things Trump has been right on is that the point of a country’s foreign policy is to promote the interests of that country. US foreign policy should benefit the US, Mexican foreign policy should benefit Mexico, and Israeli foreign policy should benefit Israel. Now, we also benefit ourselves by helping and not screwing over friends and allies.
But does that mean the Iranian deal is a good deal for the US, both directly and from the point of view of helping our allies? That I don’t know. I was simply responding to your comment about why the Israelis are concerned about Iran. It is, after all, more than just Iran perpetually talking about the need to wipe out Israel. They take active steps in that direction.
As to your short history… you leave out a few key dates. One is 1979. Now, it took the Khomeini’s regime a bit of time to go from consolidating power in Iran by coup to consolidating power over Shia militias by influence. 3 years is not that long, and they were consistent with their message (Israel as the little Satan) the whole time. Second, working off memory, the Shia in South Lebanon were sort of pro-Israel because they were viewed as countering the Syrians. But the Israelis were only countering Syria to the extent that they were helping Christian forces, primarily those under Gemayel. So the Shia viewed the Christians as the lesser of two evils, and the Israelis as helping that lesser of two evils.
When Gemayel was assassinated, and when the Phalangists committed the Sabra and Shatila massacres, the rift between Shia groups and Christian forces (perhaps the origin of the Israeli phrase “Arab kills Arab and the Jews get the blame”) couldn’t be papered over any more. Between that and growing Iranian funding the enmity toward Israel really took off among the Shia. But had the Israelis succeeded (if Gemayel had lived, or later, had the Free Lebanon State survived, the Shia militias would have gotten around to hating the Israelis, but it would have taken a few additional years. After all, the Christian groups (supported by Israel) and the Shia groups only had one common interest, namely keeping the Syrians at bay.
Again – this mostly from memory, having spent a fair amount of time reading international newspapers when I was growing up.
Oh gag, Mike, about the last thing I want to get into here is some gory discussion of Israeli history. But you are wrong on several counts.
1) Iran is not “perpetually talking about wiping Israel out.” First there have been frequent mistranslations from the Parsi/Farsi of what has been said. Second, the main person making those statements was former President Ahmadinejad and a handful of extremist clerics he was associated with. Supreme Leader Khamenei has not made such statements nor has current President Rouhani. You have been lapping up third hand Bibi propaganda.
2) Your really should stay out of the swamp of Lebanese politics. No, it was not a matter of an alliance of convenience against Syria. The Lebanese situation is and was far more complicated than you depict, with factions even within the Maronite sub-Christian group fighting with each other. While the southern Lebanese Shia were not jumping up and down pro-Israeli (and more than were the Druze, who are allowed to serve in the Israeli military in Israel), they did not have a significant militia until after Israel’s massively stupid invasion in 1982, which accomplished nothing positive for Israel.
3) Which Shia militias are you fantasizing that Iran got control of sometime after that important year I supposedly forgot about, 1979 (not so important, given this spurious control came later)? Ones in southern Lebanon or others? Iran has never controlled Hezbollah, although it does provide arms and funding for them. As it is, Hezbollah is probably the most powerful faction in the current, barely functioning, Lebanese government, with Lebanon still a somewhat democratic government, amazingly enough.
4) As it is, there are lots of retired military-intel people in Israel who disagree with Bibi about his views on the Iranian deal. Even though the deal does not stop Iran from building missiles or funding Hezbollah (what other terrorist groups is Iran supposedly funding? the Houthi rebels in Yemen that the Saudis are bombing the heck out of?), these folks realize that it is useful to have Iran in a nuclear weapons box, and all of us would be more likely to get Iran to extend the deadline on the current deal if the current deal is respected by all parties, not by making threats to abrogate it as Trump is doing.
I am not going to comment any further on the matter of Israel and the JCPOA as I consider their current corrupt leadership to have way too much influence over this discussion already against the interests of nearly the entire rest of the world, including most certainly the US, even as seriously knowledgeable people in Israel know that this leadership is using this hysteria to keep itself in power..