Iran talks: on and on and on they go…
…and where they stop, nobody knows. But we can be pretty sure it won’t be anyplace good.
I’ve written a lot about the current Iran negotiations, but don’t take the fact that I haven’t written about them lately to mean anything has changed. If anything, it is rumored that things seem to have only gotten worse in terms of our concessions, and I suspect that as time goes on the administration will become more and more desperate for a deal, any deal.
But just to fill you in on current developments:
John Kerry, in his usual clear-as-mud manner, says that “We will not rush and we will not be rushed.” On the other hand, negotiations “will not be open-ended.” That tells us pretty much—nothing.
He also said the agreement needs to “withstand the test of time,” and that “It’s a test for decades.”
In other words, we dare later administrations to change whatever we decide, and the consequences of the deal will start flowing immediately anyway. Just try and stop us.
That last idea was underlined by the fact that “the White House believes that even if Congress votes against allowing the president to implement the deal, it will have support from enough lawmakers that the critics won’t be able to override a presidential veto.” In other words: Democrats, note what we did to your fellow esteemed member of Congress Bob Menendez. Now, you wouldn’t want the same thing to happen to you, would you?
And if you’re inclined to excoriate the Republicans in Congress for agreeing to the Corker=Menendez bill requiring their approval for a negotiated deal, and you think that it actually decreased their power over what Obama and Kerry do regarding Iran, I disagree. As I wrote in a previous post on the matter:
Lots of conservatives think it’s a bad deal because without it, a 2/3 vote would be needed to approve the deal as a treaty, and with it, a 2/3 vote (because of the necessity for a veto override) will be needed to block it. But they are ignoring reality, which is that without it there is not chance it would even come up before Congress at all, because Obama would consider it not to be a treaty, and he could win that argument.
If you think Obama would ever have agreed to regard the deal as a treaty and subject it to Senate approval, think again. It is not technically and unequivocally a treaty, and they could not force him to act as though it is. The fact that other previous presidents might certainly have acted that way out of deference to Congress and public opinion does not change the fact that Obama could not care less about these things when he has a goal as important to him as conceding to Iran appears to be.
[NOTE: See more on Iran here from Michael Totten, and this and this from Powerline’s Scott Johnson.]
Frontpage put up a talk by Brett Stephens yesterday in which he demolishes Obama’s foreign policy. If yo have 50 minutes, it’s fun to watch.
Perhaps Thurston is waiting until the last minute before unveiling his nuclear option — I am speaking of course, of James Taylor. Judging by the faces of the French, the Iranians will be equally bewildered and lost for words. When Kerry springs his trap, they’ll never know what hit them.
Btw, Hussein has decided that for the crime of helping Bush in Iraq, the Kurds will be destroyed. So he will block weapons shipment to them until they are cleaned up by Iran or Turkey.
This whole Mongolian Clusterf*ck of a negotiation is too painful to watch. Does JFK not realize that he is dealing with Persian rug merchants? They have a history of sharp negotiations that put him in the position of a hapless mark. Of course we can’t forget his partner in the crime, President Obama – also a hapless mark when dealing with grown ups who can see how badly he wants to buy their bull shit….er, ah, rug. Rubio’s ad against the negotiations, which is running many times each day, tells the story in 30 seconds.
Michael Totten’s essay about Iran is the most clear-headed thing I have seen about the ME situation is months. He and Brett Stephens would make good advisers to a Republican President.
Can you imagine if a Republican President kept installing failed Republican Presidential candidates in his cabinet?
Palin as Energy? Nixon as Defense or State?
Can you imagine it?
It would kill them. Re-Elections would mean nothing once someone has won.
“I suspect that as time goes on the administration will become more and more desperate for a deal, any deal.” neo
It is of a certainty. Obama’s foreign policy ‘legacy’ depends upon him finding a way to deflect responsibility for failing to stop Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons capability. With a signed ‘agreement’, any agreement however ludicrous… he and the left can claim that from that point forward, all responsibility falls upon the Mullahs.
Obama desperate for a deal with Iran? You are ever so wrong. The negotiations will collapse and Obama will start WW3. .
“We gave them every concession, everything. It is obvious that they plan to develop nuclear weapons. They thwarted us at every opportunity by refusing independent inspections and are continuing to build at secret locations. The world cannot allow this to happen. For this reason, for the sake of humanity, I have ordered bunker buster bombs dropped on known facilities as a start. And I will not rule the use of other weapons as necessary.”
You heard it here first.
The boychild takes his orders from those far above his pay grade who have no desire to go war with Iran. It fact Iran with nukes is not a bug in these ‘negotiations’ its a desired outcome.