.. y’all know where I stand . I think that this thing is one big obscene joke .
.. I then received in my inbox a report excoriating the interim deal. The report came from a task force put together by JINSA , an international pro-Israel organization, and was co-authored by respected conservative foreign policy guru Eric Edelman and Dennis Ross . Curious that Ross would not give them an appreciation for how we got to this point and how entirely misguided is the administration’s current approach.
.. The task force’s executive summary explains the depth of the concern about the interim deal (the “JPA” or the Joint Plan of Action):
We believe the JPA is deeply flawed because the combination of interim and final concessions it contains undermine[s] the effort to prevent a nuclear Iran.
Our previous report, issued in the run-up to Geneva, spelled out six principles to which any deal must conform to protect U.S. national security interests. To be acceptable, we argued any deal must require Iran to resolve outstanding international concerns, adhere to international legal requirements and roll back its nuclear program. It would also need to put in place a strict inspections regime and clear deadlines for Iran to uphold its commitments. Finally, we made the case that, to obtain such a deal, the United States would have to negotiate and enforce it from a position of strength, to make it unmistakably plain to Tehran that it has the most to lose from the failure of diplomacy.
The rest of the report explains the ways in which the interim deal is a setback.
.. The most serious problem is the one Congress has already identified: “The JPA will cause U.S. leverage against Iran to diminish while a comprehensive settlement is negotiated and implemented. This is because the deal has begun unlacing the international sanctions regime that initially helped force Iran to the negotiating table. In addition, the deal has been interpreted by both the Rouhani and Obama administrations as obliging the United States not to legislate further sanctions – or even to pass legislation that threatens to implement further sanctions in the event Iran fails to fulfill its obligations.” We therefore have been put on the road to capitulation…
.. In essence, we give up a good deal of leverage in exchange for a deal that “does not place strict enough limits on Iran’s enrichment program to deny it nuclear weapons capability. It does not begin rolling back Iran’s enrichment progress before the mid-2014 deadline. Instead it caps certain enrichment levels, stockpiles, centrifuges and the plutonium track while a comprehensive agreement is worked out. It also allows Iran to build up its nuclear program to temporarily build down its enrichment levels and stockpiles. It does not cover work on weaponization or delivery systems. Iran could thus continue approaching nuclear weapons capability during this time, all the more so if the interim deal is renewed. Afterward, the JPA does not place permanent limits on Iran’s enrichment. This would do little to nothing to prevent a nuclear Iran over the long term.” In fact, it recognizes enrichment will be subject to mutual agreement, which Iran (or any reader) would assume preserves its claimed “right to enrich.”
.. If we have essentially given up on dismantling Iran’s entire nuclear program, the task force argues that, at the very least, we must reach a final deal in six months that allows no enrichment above 5 percent, a full inspection regime, strict limits on the number of centrifuges and the dismantling of Fordow.
.. We would hope Congress pays close attention . But even this report leaves me with some questions , specifically :
- Does the president think we can disable the threat of a Iran as a “threshold nuclear power”?
- If not, how did he remain in the administration and how did he not alert the country?
- If he does still believe that is possible, why is he pursuing a course of action that will make that goal harder to reach
In short, the JINSA report is invaluable in telling us what is wrong with the JPA , but Mr. Ross should tell us what is wrong with the president. He knows him, and he began this policy that has led to ruin. The administration has done exactly the opposite of what is required and hampered our ability to attain a goal that the country thought it shared. If out of design or ignorance the president is moving us to an alternative of containment or a nuclear-capable Iran, we need to know about it.
That is really the key to determining what the administration’s real policy is here and how and when Congress needs to act. At issue here is a nuclear-capable Iran. .
… Hilarious Take on Dr. Suess [Sarah Palin at C.P.A.C.]
Posted by paulfromwloh on Saturday,March 15th,2014
.. i know , I know , I have Governor Palin speech from C.P.A.C. on here ..
.. however , this segment of it is a howler …
.. Sarah evidently did this as a tribute to Senator Ted Cruz [R-Tx] , from his 21-hour talkathon last fall just before the government shutdown . Ted Cruz was saying goodnight to his young children , who were with his wife at home . So , she tuned the T.V. set to C-Span , and he read Dr. Suess from his talkathon on the Senate floor …
.. in her case , this thing is a parody …. Boy , is it funny …
.. [h/t — TruthRevolt]..
.. [link] to the speech footage ..
.. the text of her parody …
He forced debate. He told colleagues it was time to stand up and use the tools of the constitution, the power of the purse, to fulfill their campaign promises and to stop Obamacare. But our army bolted. We had hoped that they were reloading, but instead they retreated. And worse, they joined the lapdogs in the lame stream to trash the foot soldiers who had fought for America. Ted Cruz had a clever way of doing it too, Dr. Seuss. Who’d a thunk? Who’d a thunk? Good idea. Maybe I will add ad-lib something. There he was reading it on the floor of the Senate. And through the airwaves he was telling his kids, I am thinking of you. I am thinking of all our kids. I have five kids. I have five kids so reading ‘Green Eggs And Ham,’ over all those years to each one I totally have it memorized especially by the time Trig was born. I had to spice it up a bit. Little Trig, lucky little fella’, his bedtime story now it goes something like this…
I do not like this Uncle Sam. I do not like his health-care scam
I do not like these dirty crooks. Or how they lie and cook the books.
I do not like when Congress feels. I do not like their crony deals.
I do not like this spying man. I do not like, “oh yes we can.”
I do not like this spending spree. We’re smart we know that there’s nothing free.
I do not like reporters’ smug replies; when I complain about their lies
I do not like this kind of hope. And we wont take it nope, nope, nope….
Posted in historical opinion, humour, personal opinion, public comments, public speech | Tagged: C-SPAn, C.P.A.C., children ' s story, Dr. Suess, Dr. Theodore Geisel, Humour, parody, Sarah Palin | Leave a Comment »