Former Israeli ambassador to US reacts to Iran deal
Despite President Barack Obama's babbling about the mythical brave new world of peace and friendship arising from the deal with Iran, as a result of "negotiating from a position of strength and principle" (sic), the major US concessions to Iran guarantee Iran can violate the weak agreement with impunity.
No Iranian facility is being destroyed. Centrifuges will continue to spin at high levels. It’ll take 24 days for any UN inspector to be allowed in to see what is going on, which is more than enough time to hide bomb-advancing activity.
All it really promises is that, assuming the Iranians don’t cheat, they will need a year to get from the decision to make a bomb to making a bomb — and in eight years’ time they’ll be permitted to buy the ballistic missiles to deliver a nuclear strike.
The “year to make a bomb” is not good news for Democrats who want to support their president but don’t want to permit a nuclear Iran. But that’s where the smart structure of the deal comes in.
It’s full of temporizing numbers — no conventional weapons purchases for five years, no ballistic missile purchases for eight years, supposedly no weapons-grade uranium for 10 to 15 years.
These numbers suggest any crisis will happen in a future in which many current members of Congress will no longer be serving.
This time-stretch will, I fear, be enough for many Democrats.
Michael Oren, the US born and US trained historian before moving to Israel where he eventually became Israel's ambassador to the US, succinctly explains
Why Israel Won’t Be Celebrating the Iran Deal
According to preliminary reports, its 100 pages contain bewilderingly complex provisions for supposedly delaying Iran from making a bomb. There are international inspections of the Iranians’ nuclear facilities but none that would actually catch them off guard. There are limits to the number of centrifuges with which Iran can enrich uranium to weapons grade, but only for a decade during which not a single centrifuge will be dismantled. And Iran can continue to research and develop more advanced technologies capable of producing nuclear weapons even faster. Most mystifying still, the deal recognizes Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear power without demanding that Iran cease promoting war throughout the Middle East and terror worldwide.
For Israelis, though, there is nothing mystifying about this picture. We see an Iranian regime that will deceive inspectors and, in the end, achieve military nuclear capabilities. We see an Iranian nuclear program that, while perhaps temporarily curtailed, will remain capable of eventually producing hundreds of nuclear weapons. (snip)
We know that the deal allows Iran to break out and create nuclear bombs in as little as three months, too quickly for the world to react. We know that the Ayatollahs, who have secretly constructed fortified nuclear facilities that have no peaceful purpose and have violated all of their international commitments, will break this deal in steps too small to precipitate a powerful global response. And we know that the sanctions, once lifted, cannot be swiftly revived, and that hundreds of billions of dollars Iran will soon receive will not be spent on better roads and schools. That treasure will fund the shedding of blood – of Israelis but also of many others.
Oren then mentions the similar deal with North Korea over 20 years ago, during President Bill Clinton's (D) presidency, that was also to bring "peace in our time." No surprise, it didn't.
And Iran is not North Korea. It’s far worse. Pyonyang’s dictators never plotted terrorist attacks across five continents and in thirty cities, including Washington, D.C. Tehran’s Ayatollahs did. North Korea is not actively undermining pro-Western governments in its region or planting agents in South America. Iran is. And North Korea – unlike Iran – did not kill many hundreds of U.S. soldiers in Iraq.
Not so incidentally, Americans who understand the frightening implications of this deal are also strongly opposed as are the Saudis. They aren't celebrating Obama's victory either because they realize while Israelis will be the first victims of Iranian violations and a dangerous, nuclear armed Iran, they will soon after be next.
And when this strange coalition of uneasy allies and bitter enemies agree, then it is time to be frightened, not a time to celebrate.