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If Congress kills the deal – “International unity will collapse!”

I will be speaking with the leaders of the House and Senate today. In those conversations I will underscore that the issues at stake here are bigger than politics. These are matters of war and peace. And they should be evaluated based on the facts and what is ultimately best for the American people and for our national security. For this is not just a deal between my administration and Iran. This is a deal between Iran, the United States of America and the major powers in the world including some of our closest allies. If Congress kills this deal, not based on expert analysis and without offering any reasonable alternative, then it is the United States that will be blamed for the failure of diplomacy. International unity will collapse.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQxB7o04SCE

It boils down to the US president has to get congressional approval to make peace but can unilaterally make war

Is that really how it works? I hope the U.S. congress will support ending the Iran sanctions.

I like the sarcastic Neville Chamberlain video, well done haha!

The funny thing is, this whole business with Iran is not actually about nukes at all, leaked documents show that Mossad actually contradicted Netanyahu's claim that Iran is planning on making nukes (even though they've been assassinating Iranian scientists for years  ::)):

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/23/leaked-spy-cables-netanyahu-iran-bomb-mossad (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/23/leaked-spy-cables-netanyahu-iran-bomb-mossad)

I believe the whole debacle is just a geopolitical playbook to give Israel more power in the middle east, which benefits America.

It's becoming blatantly obvious that possessing nuclear weapons is a stupid waste of money. I'm personally against any form of nukes because not only are they economically dumb and unnecessarily brutal, but they are arguably useless because they can't pinpoint a decentralized target. Today's wars are not one country vs another, they consist of splinters of radicals spread amongst huge populations of civilians - a nuke simply couldn't take out an army without ludicrous amounts of civilian casualties. And even if a country did decide to go postal and started throwing nukes around, the nature of global connected communication means that their citizens would know what was going on, and I don't think they'd be happy about it.

I hope the idea of a "nuclear deterrent" dies away soon.

There is a framework which has been agreed upon and operational issues will most probably be ironed out going forward. I wouldn't expect any hurdles, but we mustn't celebrate too early.


http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-32172256

This, it must be stressed, is not yet a complete deal. Difficult weeks of detailed drafting lie ahead. But it's a framework on which all parties are agreed. That in itself is an important outcome. Yet this is not a moment for euphoria.

Because fuck nuclear power, keep poisoning Iranians with fossil fuel plants?

Not really. Iran retains a significant portion of its nuclear infrastructure (6104 centrifuges out of its current 19000 will be retained). IAEA inspectors will be granted required access. So the deal seems to restrict Iran's attempt to obtain a nuclear weapon, retain its civil nuclear program and ease sanctions which are hurting the country.

Peace in our time? Except that there is a proxy war going on between the Saudis and Iran as we speak, and that the US not supporting Israel anymore means that they might decide to pre-emptivly strike on a few of their neighbors to ensure they remain safe.

that along with wars being wages in Africa, Europe and Asia, I'm not sure we'll see peace in our time, I think it's going in the other direction actually.

the entire world sees this development as positive apart from the bloodthirsty jews

Predictably, Saudi Arabia and Israel will be disappointed with the deal.
Saudi Arabia, because of the Shia-Sunni angle; and Israel being Israel.

Seeing as Iran carried this on State TV means they are the winners in this. No joke about their ignorant base and already I see Polls on SH by libprogs calling his deal historic. I'm so sick of hearing 'historic' from B. Hussein the fool.

Saudi rulers are retards with extremely low IQ. They are too stupid to find out that the entire Shia - Sunni divide is being planned and put in to action by Israel and its allies in the white house. Israelis are people without any morals or rules. They will ally with anyone for their own benefit. See how they are aiding the ISIS in it's fight against Assad.

While I would like to agree with you here, I kind of don't. :P

First, I wouldn't really single out Israelis as having no morals or rules; rather, I'd say states in general have little to no morals or rules, and usually, the more power they have the less constrained by those things they are.

Second, I'm not as convinced Saudi rulers are (completely) retarded; I think they just have different values and priorities than what we would assume them to have. I think you're mostly right in saying much of the Sunni-Shia divide is being played and exacerbated to the advantage of foreign powers (it's the usual tactic), but remember that the main function of the royal family is to serve Western interests - and that's probably the only reason they're still in power. In that context, the Sunni-Shia divide is useful to them, in a way, as it allows them a distraction they can use to play against their own population; and if there weren't any distractions, they wouldn't keep on being the ruling family for long - Western backing or not.

Yep!

I called them retarded because they are acting against their own long time survival. By encouraging the Shia-Sunni divide and encouraging the ISIS, they are inviting their own downfall.

Technically no. The President is supposed to wait for the US congress to pass a resolution declaring war on a particular state. But that hasn't happened in decades. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars never had any formal congressional resolution; nor has any action taken against ISIS.

Congress just gives a de facto war resolution by continuing to fund the military (Pentagon). Of course they're shamed into doing that because if they don't fund the military then the soldiers would lose all funding; including medical and retirement benefits.

Obama has failed with EVERY foreign policy initiative.
This will be no different.

Diplo-babble from lame duck administration. Obama has drawn too many red lines in the sand and is frantic to boost his legacy. Appeasers will be pleased to believe the framework is `Peace in our time`and its the news they are desperate to hear. Realists know that Congress will not approve this Treaty. Meanwhile the Iranian ballistic missiles are being improved constantly with Russian and Chinese technical support and the centrifuges keep on churning.

He gave all and Iran gave a promise.
They had their fingers crossed, but Obama did not see that..

It isn't only Obama, many countries want to do business with Iran. It's a market with nearly 80 million consumers, and it isn't third world, there are huge business opportunities. Obama talked about the American people, it should have said American businesses.

Sure, I don't disagree with that - I'm just pointing out that I don't believe them to be the "independent actors" they might at times appear to be.

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Really? If anything, it seems to me that the deal, as it is now, is harsher to Iran rather than anyone else: they are committing themselves to be under constant, intrusive inspections to all of their nuclear facilities, and more importantly, to the supply chain that supports their nuclear program - this in effect means it will be very hard for material to be diverted without the inspectors knowing about it, easing any concerns about any possible secret nuclear weapons program - and no one realistically believes them to have, or to even plan on having one any time soon. Further, they will be limited to producing very little material, from a few, mostly obsolete centrifuges, on only one enrichment facility, and with no possibility of building additional facilities for 15 years. Also, a good portion of the measures Iran will be taking will be irreversible - or rather, quite costly in both time and money to rebuild.

In exchange for all this, the only thing "Obama" gave (again, as the deal stands now; and obviously not just the US) was indeed just a promise: sanctions will be lifted, when and if the IAEA is satisfied Iran has kept its part of the deal - but that is so vague at the moment, it isn't even clear what sanctions will be lifted and when exactly.

For more details, The Real News Network recently interviewed Robert Kelly on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nO2-ls2yEp0 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nO2-ls2yEp0) ("Extended Interview with Robert Kelly on Iran framework Deal (2/2)", 22m23s).

Right now, the main focus is to destroy the Russian economy and to isolate Russia. So the US is cosying up to the most hardcore Russian allies such as Iran and Cuba. The advantage with Iran is that they can put another 2 million or 3 million barrels of oil per day in to the world market, which in turn would sink the crude price below $30 per barrel.