BloggeRhythms

A FoxNews.com article reports that, “Republican hopefuls in the 2016 presidential race are criticizing the Obama administration’s tentative nuclear deal with Iran, saying the agreement is dangerous for the United States and its allies.”

 

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker made the most succinctly accurate statement by tweeting: “Obama’s dangerous deal with Iran rewards an enemy, undermines our allies and threatens our safety.”

 

However, carefully reading an article by Michael R. Gordon on nytimes.com illustrates that despite all the promotion and hype from the administration, there may not ever be an agreement at all. 

 

Headlined, “Outline of Iran Nuclear Deal Sounds Different From Each Side,” the column reports that, “A careful review shows that there is considerable overlap between the two accounts, but also some noteworthy differences — which have raised the question of whether the two sides are entirely on the same page, especially on the question of how quickly sanctions are to be removed. The American and Iranian statements also do not clarify some critical issues, such as precisely what sort of research Iran will be allowed to undertake on advanced centrifuges during the first 10 years of the accord.”

 

Furthermore, “American officials acknowledge that they did not inform the Iranians in advance of all the “parameters” the United States would make public in an effort to lock in progress made so far, as well as to strengthen the White House’s case against any move by members of Congress to impose more sanctions against Iran.

 

“We talked to them and told them that we would have to say some things,” said a senior administration official who could not be identified under the protocol for briefing reporters. “We didn’t show them the paper. We didn’t show them the whole list.”

 

The official acknowledged that it was “understood that we had different narratives, but we wouldn’t contradict each other.”

 

Despite an agreement not to contradict each other, Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, while not challenging any nuclear provisions in the American document, complained instead that, “the paper had been drawn up under Israeli and congressional pressure, and he restated Iran’s insistence on fast sanctions relief, including the need to “terminate,” not just suspend, European Union sanctions.”

 

The most questionable part of the “deal’s” validity though, is that: “The starkest differences between the American and Iranians accounts concern the pace at which punishing economic sanctions against Iran are to be removed. The Iranian text says that when the agreement is implemented, the sanctions will “immediately” be canceled.

 

“American officials have described sanctions relief as more of a step-by-step process tied to Iranian efforts to carry out the accord.”

 

All of which leads to the current bottom line, which isn’t firm because, “with three months of hard bargaining ahead, some experts worry that the lack of an agreed-upon, detailed public framework can only complicate the negotiations — and may even invite the Iranians to try to re-litigate the terms of the Lausanne deal.

 

“I think it is a troubling development,” said Ray Takeyh, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, who has been critical of the Obama administration’s handling of the talks. “They will exploit all ambiguities with creative interpretations.”

 

So, despite all the hoopla at the moment, this deal looks like most of the administration’s other “accomplishments.” Three, four, five or more years from now, we’ll all find out what the truth actually is, which will be far too late to repair the damage.

 

That’s it for today folks.

 

Adios