Doctor Fate wrote:

danivon wrote:When considering whether to make a deal, a lot depends on what is in that deal. I don't know what the "deal" with Iran actually entails, as much as sone claim various attributes to it, so far it hasn't been reached yet.

I disagree on two counts: 1) the "with whom" aspect is completely missing;

2) this begs the question: why are "we" so friendly toward the Iranians and so antagonistic toward the Israelis? Is Netanyahu so much less trustworthy than the "death to America" chanting ayatollahs?

But this newly elected Israeli government, like the previous Israeli government, is set to renege on deals it made - speeding up settlement building, blocking moves to making deals with the PA, ruling out the two-state solution that has been the US-supported policy for over 20 years, regardless of which party was in power.

Okay, so how are the Palestinians doing? The Israelis are not acting in a vacuum.

But anyone reading the above would think that the talks with Iran had not just been suspended. Or not have a clue that the two reasons Iran came to the table were the oil sanctions and that the West has been sabotaging Iranin imports of nuclear tech. Basically, America and her allies have been using covert tactics to hit Iran's nuclear programme, and would be able to again if Iran violated a deal.

No, what they ought to be thinking is how much contortion the Obama-Clinton-Kerry team has gone through begging the Iranians not to do what they clearly aim to do. It doesn't matter how many times Iran says "no," the "team" clings bitterly to the notion that something will cause the nihilistic sponsors of terror to suddenly become responsible actors. The word "delusional" only begins to describe the Obama foreign policy.

bbauska wrote:To me this is not different than Republicans saying to a foreign nation that the policies put into effect via Executive Order can be rescinded by the Executive Order of a Republican President.

Treaties need to be ratified by the Senate in the US. I have enclosed the Whitehouse.gov link for your assistance in how the Constitution says the US government should be run..

https://www.whitehouse.gov/our-government/legislative-branch

bbauska wrote:Do you recall when I asked you to answer questions? You make me laugh...

danivon wrote:

bbauska wrote:Do you recall when I asked you to answer questions? You make me laugh...

You demand. I merely invite.

"Your response is noted"

rickyp wrote:http://www.timesofisrael.com/new-nsa-document-highlights-israeli-espionage-in-us/

P.S. I'm going to guess that 2 of the countries in the P5 negotiating with Iran have both more charges and are more active than Israel in espionage against the US

Yeah. But they aren't supposed to be trusted friends.

“I have heard of that report,” Hagel said of the two-part Newsweek article. “I’m not aware of the facts that would substantiate the report,” he added, according to Reuters.

How do accusations against Israel immediately turn into facts when you read them

CARL CAMERON, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Since Sept. 11, more than 60 Israelis have been arrested or detained, either under the new patriot anti-terrorism law, or for immigration violations. A handful of active Israeli military were among those detained, according to investigators, who say some of the detainees also failed polygraph questions when asked about alleged surveillance activities against and in the United States

Or that Israel has been the nation charged with espionage in the US most often?

Source?

Charged is wrong.
Most active is what newsweek claims

danivon wrote:

Doctor Fate wrote:

danivon wrote:When considering whether to make a deal, a lot depends on what is in that deal. I don't know what the "deal" with Iran actually entails, as much as sone claim various attributes to it, so far it hasn't been reached yet.

I disagree on two counts: 1) the "with whom" aspect is completely missing;

So? Do you disagree that the "what" of any deal matters a lot? Or are you just arguing for the sake of it?

2) this begs the question: why are "we" so friendly toward the Iranians and so antagonistic toward the Israelis? Is Netanyahu so much less trustworthy than the "death to America" chanting ayatollahs?

Please show how the US is doing the following things with Iran that it is with Israel:

1) trading freely (exports from Israel to the US exceed those to the EU)
2) sending billions of dollars of military (about $3bn a year, and for about 40 years)
3) using UN vetos to block security council resolutions the other nation opposes.
4) actually signing a nuclear deal to boost the power sector
5) guaranteeing government debt

In fact, find me one of the ways above that the USA does more for Iran than it does for Israel. Or please explain exactly how the USA is being more friendly towards Iran than Israel at the moment.

(the third alternative is to accept that you are indulging in hyperbole)

But this newly elected Israeli government, like the previous Israeli government, is set to renege on deals it made - speeding up settlement building, blocking moves to making deals with the PA, ruling out the two-state solution that has been the US-supported policy for over 20 years, regardless of which party was in power.

Okay, so how are the Palestinians doing? The Israelis are not acting in a vacuum.

Nope. Neither is anyone else.

Please show the 'begging'. What offers has the US made to Iran?

Obama stated: “Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khameini, has issued a fatwa against the development of nuclear weapons.”

A fatwa is a ruling by an Islamic religious authority.

The problem is that no such ruling exists.

Several days ago, former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy penned a post on just this topic in response to similar comments from Secretary of State Kerry, and before him Secretary of State Clinton. McCarthy wrote:

[T]he “fatwa” in question does not exist.

The invaluable Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) has done extensive research into compilations of Khamenei’s published fatwas. (See here and here, and citations therein.) No such fatwa has ever been published. [Emphasis McCarthy's]

McCarthy continues:

In a sharia state, particularly the one in Iran that is actually run by the country’s top sharia jurists, fatwas are important statements of governing law, like statutes are in the U.S. Yet despite repeated requests, Iran has never produced the purported anti-nuclear weapons fatwa from Khamenei.

Doctor Fate wrote:

danivon wrote:Please show how the US is doing the following things with Iran that it is with Israel:

1) trading freely (exports from Israel to the US exceed those to the EU)
2) sending billions of dollars of military (about $3bn a year, and for about 40 years)
3) using UN vetos to block security council resolutions the other nation opposes.
4) actually signing a nuclear deal to boost the power sector
5) guaranteeing government debt

In fact, find me one of the ways above that the USA does more for Iran than it does for Israel. Or please explain exactly how the USA is being more friendly towards Iran than Israel at the moment.

Please read the rhetoric the President uses toward Iran and compare and contrast it with that which he uses toward Israel. One could easily conclude we have a more optimistic outlook toward Iran than toward Israel.

After all, would we expect the President (by extension) to meddle in elections in Iran like he just did in Israel?

Oh, they don't "really" have free and meaningful elections in Iran? In that case, the President's rhetoric is even less explicable.

(the third alternative is to accept that you are indulging in hyperbole)

Nah.

Okay, so how are the Palestinians doing? The Israelis are not acting in a vacuum.

Nope. Neither is anyone else.

Yet, the pressure the US is exuding is on the Israelis. The threats (implied) are toward Israel, not Palestine.

Jerusalem Post wrote:“I think it is important to remember that Hamas acts extraordinarily irresponsibly,” Obama said on Wednesday, “putting civilians at risk” with its taunts against Israel, and its placement of rocket launchers in civilian areas during conflict with the Jewish state.

“I have said from the beginning that no country would tolerate rockets being launched into their cities,” he continued.

“And as a consequence, I have consistently defended Israel’s right to defend itself, and that includes doing what it needs to do.”

The president was responding to a question on whether he agreed with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s assessment of Operation Protective Edge, as a “justified” and “proportionate” military response to Hamas’s rocket fire and tunneling into Israel.

Please show the 'begging'. What offers has the US made to Iran?

Iran has, at every step, refused US demands. What Obama has done, at every refusal, is lowered the bar. We no longer demand that they dismantle their program. We no longer ask that they stop enrichment. We are only asking that they stay a year away.

Make no mistake: there will be a deal. It will be worth far less than the hype surrounding it and the paper it is written upon. It will not work.

As he notes, we gave Iran billions in sanctions relief just to get them to the negotiating table

One reason the danger of a nuclear Iran has been grossly exaggerated is that the debate surrounding it has been distorted by misplaced worries and fundamental misunderstandings of how states generally behave in the international system. The first prominent concern, which undergirds many others, is that the Iranian regime is innately irrational. Despite a widespread belief to the contrary, Iranian policy is made not by "mad mullahs" but by perfectly sane ayatollahs who want to survive just like any other leaders. Although Iran's leaders indulge in inflammatory and hateful rhetoric, they show no propensity for self-destruction. It would be a grave error for policymakers in the United States and Israel to assume otherwise.

Yet that is precisely what many U.S. and Israeli officials and analysts have done. Portraying Iran as irrational has allowed them to argue that the logic of nuclear deterrence does not apply to the Islamic Republic. If Iran acquired a nuclear weapon, they warn, it would not hesitate to use it in a first strike against Israel, even though doing so would invite massive retaliation and risk destroying everything the Iranian regime holds dear.

Although it is impossible to be certain of Iranian intentions, it is far more likely that if Iran desires nuclear weapons, it is for the purpose of providing for its own security, not to improve its offensive capabilities (or destroy itself). Iran may be intransigent at the negotiating table and defiant in the face of sanctions, but it still acts to secure its own preservation. Iran's leaders did not, for example, attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz despite issuing blustery warnings that they might do so after the EU announced its planned oil embargo in January. The Iranian regime clearly concluded that it did not want to provoke what would surely have been a swift and devastating American response to such a move.

Nevertheless, even some observers and policymakers who accept that the Iranian regime is rational still worry that a nuclear weapon would embolden it, providing Tehran with a shield that would allow it to act more aggressively and increase its support for terrorism. Some analysts even fear that Iran would directly provide terrorists with nuclear arms. The problem with these concerns is that they contradict the record of every other nuclear weapons state going back to 1945. History shows that when countries acquire the bomb, they feel increasingly vulnerable and become acutely aware that their nuclear weapons make them a potential target in the eyes of major powers. This awareness discourages nuclear states from bold and aggressive action. Maoist China, for example, became much less bellicose after acquiring nuclear weapons in 1964, and India and Pakistan have both become more cautious since going nuclear. There is little reason to believe Iran would break this mold.

danivon wrote:

After all, would we expect the President (by extension) to meddle in elections in Iran like he just did in Israel?

That is too funny. The GOP invited him over to give an election address to Congress, and you claim Obama meddled? ho ho ho.

He certainly was not happy at the comments made by Netanyahu just before the poll, but seems most of his reaction was after the election (hard to meddle in an election after the polls close)

Just days after the Obama White House accused House Speaker John Boehner of “breaking protocol” by inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress, a team of up to five Obama campaign operatives has reportedly arrived in Israel to lead a campaign to defeat the Israeli Prime Minister in upcoming national elections scheduled for March 17.

The anti-Netanyahu, left wing Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports a group called “One Voice,” reportedly funded by American donors, is paying for the Obama campaign team. That group is reportedly being led by Obama’s 2012 field director Jeremy Bird.

Oh, they don't "really" have free and meaningful elections in Iran? In that case, the President's rhetoric is even less explicable.

Let's see what the US government was saying and doing last time there was an election in Iran then.

criticising the process of 'vetting' candidates
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/origina ... cism.html#

allowing tech exports to help people circumvent censorship
http://www.dw.de/us-reaches-out-to-iran ... a-16852115

Didn't think so. So, please try not to avoid the question and tell me how Iran gets anything like one of the five things above that Israel gets.

Or I will be forced to assume that you are indeed just indulging in partisan hyperbole, and can't even bring yourself to admit it how transparent it is.

Mark Dubowitz, the executive director of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, an organization that has worked closely with Congress and the administration on devising the current Iranian sanctions, said the slow pace of designations was only one kind of sanctions relief Obama has been offering Iran.

“For five months, since Rouhani’s election, the United States has offered Iran two major forms of sanctions relief,” Dubowitz said. “First there’s been a significant slowdown in the pace of designations while the Iranians are proliferating the number of front companies and cutouts to bust sanctions.”

The second kind of relief Dubowitz said the White House had offered Iran was through its opposition to new Iran sanctions legislation supported by both parties in Congress.

By Dubowitz’s estimates, Iran is now selling between 150,000 and 200,000 barrels of oil per day on the black market, meaning that Iran has profited from the illicit sale of over 35 million barrels of oil since Rouhani took office, with little additional measures taken by the United States to counter it.

“Sounds like Obama decided to enter the Persian nuclear bazaar to haggle with the masters of negotiation and has had his head handed to him,” Dubowitz said.

President Barack Obama confirmed that he would veto any sanctions bill against Iran, saying that passing such a measure would “all but guarantee that diplomacy fails.”

The 2015 “Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community” excludes Iran and its network of jihadi groups who are motivated by Islam’s Shia sect, from the report’s terror section.

Instead, the assessment focuses entirely jihadis motivated by the Sunni sect of Islam, including those in al-Qaida and ISIS, sometimes known as the Islamic State.

“Sunni violent extremists are gaining momentum and the number of Sunni violent extremist groups, members, and safe havens is greater than at any other point in history,” the report admits.

That’s a big shift from 2014, when Iran’s network of jihadis — chiefly, the Hezbollah army in Lebanon — got their own subsection.

Read more: http://therightscoop.com/dude-obama-has ... z3VKtA5Fxk

What "threats"? Are they going to reduce the $3bn in military aid? Introduce sanctions? Or just maintain the US' current position on I/P and stick to waiting for both sides to stop messing about and come to the table.

The US has little leverage with the Palestinians (and zero with Hamas), and never really has done.

But he has backed Israel against Hamas. “I think it is important to remember that Hamas acts extraordinarily irresponsibly,” Obama said on Wednesday, “putting civilians at risk” with its taunts against Israel, and its placement of rocket launchers in civilian areas during conflict with the Jewish state.

“I have said from the beginning that no country would tolerate rockets being launched into their cities,” he continued.

I want to see what the 'deal' is before I accept it is either good or bad.

The Obama administration won't submit any deal limiting Iran's nuclear ambitions to Congress for approval because it won't be legally binding, Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday.

"We've been clear from the beginning we're not negotiating a legally binding plan. We're negotiating a plan that will have a capacity for enforcement," he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

I would also like to see your evidence. I've seen enough of the rhetoric.

rickyp wrote:fate

As he notes, we gave Iran billions in sanctions relief just to get them to the negotiating table

Carrot and stick. Cottons approach would be all stick. Which would work because???
Look at how effective almost total isolation was at keeping North Korea from achieving nuclear weapons.

Plus, there's is sufficient historical evidence that even seemingly irrational players, like Maoist China, act quite rationally once they have the bomb. Probably because they are caricatures from a bad movie.

An Iranian official criticized the U.N. atomic agency chief for demanding snap inspections of Iran’s nuclear sites, saying such a demand stands in the way of Tehran and world powers reaching a deal on the country’s controversial nuclear program…

Iran’s nuclear spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi was quoted Tuesday on Iranian state TV’s website as saying that snap inspections are “illegal.” He did not elaborate.

Kamalvandi was responding to the demand earlier this month by Yukiya Amano, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), that Tehran agree to the inspections.