With President Donald Trump’s loud declaration of disdain for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear deal arrived at with Iran by six nations plus the European Union, the opponents of the deal are newly energized. They have resurrected all their old arguments, plus a few more.
Although the agreement severely limits the amounts of materials needed to make a bomb and places heavy inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on the facilities that Iran used to taunt the international community with its nuclear know-how, the opponents of the deal insist that it will be no time at all before Iran surprises us with a bomb. They make this argument without bothering to specify how that might happen.
The IAEA continues to certify that Iran is complying with the agreement, which is awkward for Trump and the opponents, but they do not let that stop them. There are other possible sites! Every facility that might be able to contribute to bomb-making MUST BE INSPECTED NOW!
Their argument is that the JCPOA is insufficient to rein in Iran’s ambitions in its neighborhood. It was never intended to address more than Iran’s nuclear program. So why not keep the limits that the JCPOA places on Iran’s nuclear program and negotiate additional agreements to address Iran’s missiles and other activities? Undermining an existing agreement will make further negotiations more difficult.
Part of the thinking on the JCPOA was that it was an opening to follow-on agreements. The ambassadors to the United States from the UK, France, Germany, and the European Union argued exactly that in a panel at the Atlantic Council that is well worth viewing. If you don’t have time for that, here are summaries from Al Monitor and the New York Times.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford agrees:
It would be better for Washington to “focus on leveraging our partners that were part of that agreement to deal with the other challenges that we know Iran poses,” Dunford said.
But the opponents have other ideas. Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security want to put the screws to Iran to re-open negotiations. Dubowitz summarizes their argument in a Twitter thread. He provides links to his articles on the subject, which are in the thread. Here’s the text of his thread.
- Enforcement only is delusion of Iran deal. Gives patient nuke, ICBM & regional pathways as restrictions expire.
- Roll out pressure campaign against Iran like Reagan did against USSR using all instruments of American power.
- “Waive and slap” while developing a comprehensive pressure plan to fix nuke deal & roll back Iran regime.
- Rebuild financial pressure by designating Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization in its entirety.
- Target Iran and Hezbollah to avert a Third Lebanon War.
- “Decertify, waive, slap and fix” the Iran deal while rolling back Iran regionally & globally.
Part of the pressure Dubowitz would bring to bear is to demand unannounced inspections anywhere in Iran. The opponents also believe that decertification by President Trump and subsequent imposition of sanctions by Congress would bring the other parties to the JCPOA back to negotiations. The Atlantic Council panel of ambassadors stated that their countries were committed to the JCPOA and would not reopen negotiations.
“Rollback”? That’s another word for regime change, which Dubowitz has said he wants in Iran. Back in the 1950s and 1960s, people talked about “rolling back” the Chinese Communist government before they got nuclear weapons. It didn’t happen, but it caused a split in the US government that set us back decades in dealing with China. It also encouraged China to get a nuclear weapon. The George W. Bush administration abrogated an agreement with North Korea that slowed down its progress toward nuclear weapons. Now it has them. Regime change in Iraq shows how badly such things can go wrong.
The opponents never provide an example of success in doing what they want to do to Iran. It’s hard to understand why they insist on wrecking the JCPOA rather than building on it. They claim that the actions they advocate will not lead to war, but that seems to be a matter of faith or confirmation bias.
Cross-posted to Nuclear Diner.
japa21
This really pisses me off. There was an opening where we could have actually started rebuilding a relationship with Iran and Bush 43 blew it. Then Obama works to get them off the nuclear weapon track and maybe, just maybe, work towards other things, and now Trump wants it all to be dumped.
I am not going to try to convince people that Iran is something its not, like some beacon of democracy. But it isn’t the work of Satan either.
gene108
An argument I heard from conservatives, when all the saber rattling was going in late 2002 and early 2003, when IAEA inspectors were looking for WMD’s at sites, we thought could be capable of producing them.
Basically, the argument went that sure the IAEA was looking at sites and coming up empty, but there are other possible sites Saddam has kept hidden and off-limits, therefore we need to send in the troops to tear the country apart and find those sites.
jl
IIRC, even ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis thinks better to forge ahead with the agreement, even though he expressed opposition to the deal initially.
If that is his firm opinion now, how much chance the ‘central casting’ generals will be an effective counterbalance to the dangerous madness from the reactionary war mongers?
Shalimar
The worst part will be after they destroy the deal, when the Iranians get their first nukes, and Bibi and Trump say “see, we told you so” and pretend it isn’t their fault. Lying assholes.
Cheryl Rofer
@gene108: Yes. And the opponents have a more detailed argument going about that. There is a section of the JCPOA in which Iran promises not to build nuclear weapons. The opponents say that in order to verify that section, there must be inspections anywhere, anytime. They are, of course, requiring that Iran prove a negative.
Yukiya Amano, Director General of the IAEA, has called for clarification of that section by the parties to the agreement. They are, of course, the only ones who can say what they intended with that section. I’ve always taken it as an expression of good faith by Iran, but the opponents see it as another cudgel.
Chyron HR
Yeah, but if Clinton won she would have started bombing Iran back in January. December, even.
Cheryl Rofer
@jl: I see Haley, Tillerson, and Trump using talking points from the opponents of the deal. I can’t remember seeing the generals using those talking points.
Mike in NC
“David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security want to put the screws to Iran to re-open negotiations.”
As in ISIS ? Have they now joined forces with Trump?
Cheryl Rofer
@Mike in NC: That’s one place I feel a little sorry for Albright. He had the acronym first but has had to change his usage of it. His Twitter account is now @TheGoodISIS.
Major Major Major Major
@Chyron HR: And she probably would have kept using her private email server too, or maybe even two of them, not like the current administration.
Shalimar
I would love to see the details of what he thinks this pressure campaign Reagan directed against the USSR using all instruments of American power actually consisted of. I mostly remember spending way more than necessary on an expensive military buildup, calling them lots of names, and then several stages of negotiations on various treaties. Republicans act like Reagan killed Gorbachev in personal combat and won the country fair and square.
jl
@Cheryl Rofer: That is a hopeful sign. But if the opponents have BS talkingpoints and the generals have thick reports and analysis and facts and logic and stuff, how can the latter prevail? Seems like they will be playing a weak hand in this administration.
rikyrah
Don’t sleep on the Persians. They are SO not playing. This would NOT be another Iraq. It would be 10x worse.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@Shalimar:
Yes, and Trump’s asskissing hordes will blame Obama. I swear, this conservative blame-Obama thing is gold for them. Trump could come out before the press, stick a knife into a baby and pull its heart out and eat it, and then say it was Obama who did it, and his asskissers would go along with it.
Cheryl Rofer
I’m headed out for a bit. Will be back in an hour or so.
rikyrah
Up to 23,000 voters in 2 counties alone were deterred from voting. Trump won WI by 22,000 votes. This is calculated. https://t.co/Krzw6PQKBM
— Tom Perez (@TomPerez) September 28, 2017
Boussinesque
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): I can imagine it right now–“If only Obama hadn’t been so black, I wouldn’t’ve been forced to eat this baby’s heart. Why does Obama hate babies?”
I hate these people so much ><
GregB
@rikyrah:
I am convinced that if these fools end up attacking Iran, it will proceed to spiral out of control and into a massive regional war.
Ugly stuff….
Mary G
Obama did it. That makes it bad. SATSQ.
This still feels like Iraq 2003 Electric Boogaloo 2 to me. Nothing these chickenhawks would love more than to send good American lives to die for nothing except to give them a hard-on about how tough they are.
Cermet
This has an up side – if Iran is forced back into building a bomb, they will spend all that $$$ and have little for terrorism funding. Better still, once they have some nukes, Israel has more reasons to control our foreign policy. Better still, they can then get many, many billions more from the US taxpayer to build a missile defense system. This is just win/win for neocons and the right-wingers: both here and in Israel.
NorthLeft12
I think the other signatories of the deal will likely continue to honour their commitments. Iran has already said that their continued co-operation will be based on what the other countries do, so I do not expect them to run off and begin to rebuild their nuclear program as soon as Deadbeat Donald pulls the US out.
To me, this is a great opportunity for other countries to build some positive ties with Iran. I am hoping that Canada is one of those countries.
Trump and his band of deplorables will high five with Israel and the Saudis, and probably no one else. Again, another case of just undoing anything that President Obama and Sec. Clinton have done. Pretty pathetic.
trollhattan
@Cermet:
I think you’re joking but regardless, they were developing nukes and funding Hezbollah et al while under sanctions before and there’s no reason they can’t do so again, sanctions lifted or reapplied.
As to arming Bibi to the teeth, assuming he has any unarmed teeth left, Republicans are always down for that.
Cermet
@trollhattan: Yes
Hoodie
I wonder how much of this is simply bureaucratic imperative, this is these guys’ schtick and how they get a paycheck. They couldn’t care less about the consequences, or the the consequences guarantee their continued employment. I see similar things in the tech world, where their are ecosystems of conference organizers, technology evangelists, etc., whose main goal is to perpetuate the conferences, events and evangelizing to keep the money coming in.
trollhattan
@NorthLeft12:
My wish is like most of us, Iran is hoping to ride out the Trump era and kind of assuming it will be brief. They do have their own moderate-hardliner squabbles going on too, which is a wildcard.
Patricia Kayden
@Chyron HR: Yeah, didn’t Susan Sarandon tell us that Killary would have been much worse than Trump because shew as a warmonger? Argghhhhh!!
Major Major Major Major
@rikyrah: See, if we’d listened to the Sandernistas and given Keith Ellison the chair instead of that sellout Perez, he would’ve already used Obama’s time machine to go back to 2016 and undisenfranchise those voters.
sharl
1. what japa21 said.
2. Cheryl, I’ve really appreciated your steadfast rebuttals on twitter to these intellectually shoddy DC think tank droids who offer anti-Iran saber rattling without linking to any publicly available reports that would back them up. A number of these exchanges end up with them accusing you of ad hominem attacks when it’s clear they got nuthin’. I find this hilarious, though I imagine it is tedious and/or exhausting for you. Please know that it is appreciated (though I’m sure you’d still do it with or without audience applause).
TenguPhule
Burning lifeless landscape of craters is not media friendly.
jefft452
“would bring the other parties to the JCPOA back to negotiations”
Riiight, the best way to get someone to negotiate with you is to renege on what you agreed to at the last negotiation
Their goal has nothing to do with Iran or nukes
Their true goal is destroying America’s reputation on the international stage
Patricia Kayden
Just seeing this article now on several celebrities taking the knee in support of the NFL players protesting police brutality. And although I’m not a big fan, please watch Montell Williams’ passionate defense of taking the knee. It’s powerful.
TenguPhule
@Cermet:
There is no up side to this.
TenguPhule
@rikyrah:
Talk about optimistic.
There are no words to describe just how fucking wrong it would go.
Major Major Major Major
CNN sez Tom Price is pinkie swearing to pay us back for the aeroplanes.
TenguPhule
@Cheryl Rofer:
More accurate would be the @NotQuiteasBadISIS
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major:
When he welches on it, I say we take his pinkies as collateral. Both of them.
SRW1
When the Trumpster is done, the US won’t need to negotiate with any adversary any more. Who would trust any agreement it signs?
Patricia Kayden
@rikyrah:
So what can we do about that? What is the DNC doing about that? Between voter suppression and Citizens United and Russian hacking, we have so much to fight before next November. I wish the DNC was blasting us with ways to fight against this or organizations to support. I know the ACLU is fighting voter suppression so there’s that.
TenguPhule
@SRW1:
What makes you think anyone will be left to sign anything?
germy
@Patricia Kayden:
Voting Rights Project
https://www.aclu.org/blog/voting-rights/people-power-launches-50-state-voting-rights-campaign-reenergize-our-democracy
Patricia Kayden
@Major Major Major Major: Really? Like how Trump promised to show us his tax returns once the “audit” was done? Alrighty then.
Patricia Kayden
@germy: Yes. Thank goodness for the ACLU. They’ve misstepped a few times (like supporting the Nazi march in Charlottesville as protection of free speech) but otherwise, they’re certainly a group worthy of support.
hovercraft
@Major Major Major Major:
I guess his insider trading paid off.
He owes us at least 400K as far as we know so far.
Corrupt, hypocritical motherfucker!
CNN is also reporting that the rumors about Twitler firing him are premature. Much like the Evil Elf, his value in dismantling Obama’s legacy is worth more than the momentary satisfaction of using his catch phrase, so for now he gets to stay.
To which I say good, lets the Troglodytes revel in the blatant hypocrisy.
Cheryl Rofer
@sharl: Thanks! It’s hard to know how that comes across. I’d really rather not engage in that kind of fighting, but it was worse while the deal was being negotiated. And I made a big point against the opponents then. In fact, I think that a couple of us totally destroyed what they thought would be their last and successful push. So there’s a history there.
Mnemosyne
@japa21:
@jefft452:
There are quite a few people in this world who are convinced that the only way to get someone to change is through punishment. They’re usually people who had awful, abusive childhoods that they need to rationalize to themselves by claiming that what their parents did is the only way to parent.
These same people are now in charge of our government.
sharl
That certainly came through! They were obviously frustrated that they couldn’t just ignore/block/mute you like a regular twitter rando. So they hauled out the ol’ ad hominem charge, before taking their ball and slinking home.
During you final days of employment, did you imagine your retirement would be like this?
Cheryl Rofer
@Mnemosyne: This is such an important point. There are a lot of “strategists” around for whom the answer to everything is punishment. They have no sense of negotiation, of solving problems.
Roger Moore
@japa21:
Maybe not, but they’re a hell of a lot closer than Saudi Arabia. Iran at least has regular elections contested between political parties with genuine political differences that have real effects on their country’s policy. Unelected theocrats still have too much power to prevent candidate they don’t like from running and to override decisions they don’t like, but it’s a lot easier to see how Iran could get to the point of having free and fair elections than just about any of the Arab monarchies.
Cheryl Rofer
@sharl: This is a lot more fun than anything I imagined. And I’ve been told that what I did really made a difference.
japa21
@Roger Moore: Oh, I agree. They really are on of the more liberal countries in the ME.
Robert Sneddon
@Roger Moore: Unelected theocrats still have too much power to prevent candidate they don’t like from running and to override decisions they don’t like,
You mean like the US Supreme Court? Both sets of unelected theocrats even dress alike.
Miss Bianca
@rikyrah: So Tom, what’s the plan, eh? Still haven’t heard too much about what he thinks the DNC should or could be doing about this. Altho’ if he came out with some variation on Kay’s plan of hiring a bunch of local organizers to get out the vote, I’d be the first to cheer.
Roger Moore
@Robert Sneddon:
They haven’t quite gotten to the point of preventing people from running for office because they’re apostates.
When did the Supreme Court start wearing turbans?
Another Scott
Others here have mentioned Bibi and Israel. It’s hard for me not to see the continuing demand that Iran be destroyed is heavily driven by that.
Israel’s government wants free rein in Lebanon, and has for a very long time. Probably even before Sabra and Shatila. Iran (and Syria) have been a thorn in Israel’s side in preventing Bibi and his predecessors from marching through there as often as they’d like. Assad isn’t a threat to Israeli hegemony in that region (but he’s not going away as long as Vlad is propping him up), but Iran and Hezbollah (backed by Iran) are.
Too many in US politics and industry get really upset when US oil companies can’t do what they want. Iran supposedly has the world’s 4th largest proven oil reserves, so even without everything else there would be pressure for the US to depose them (look at Venezuela).
And too many in the US military will never get over the Beirut bombing, even if orders of magnitudes more will be killed or injured if we get in another hot war over there…
There are many, many powerful forces that can’t wait to attack Iran and will keep pushing until they’re able to do so. Sensible US leadership can resist those forces. E.g. “No, Bibi, we’re not going to play ‘let’s you and him fight’ for your amusement and your broken political views.” Trump is too brain damaged to see how he’s being played. Fortunately, his administration is too incompetent to speak with a single coherent voice and whip up the VSPs so that we’re having yet another war in that part of the world… But nothing is a sure thing with him and his minions in power.
:-(
Cheers,
Scott.
J R in WV
@Cheryl Rofer:
Cheryl,
I’m glad you’re enjoying your retirement, I certainly think you’re doing a great job, even just here at Balloon-Juice, where as long as John and Alain keep the server running out opinions ( as demented as some of them are) are available to posterity.
Hang in there, do what you enjoy, have fun.
JR