Iran Deal Aftermath

 

World to Help Iran Protect Nuke Facilities - Shlomo Cesana

The nuclear deal with Iran guarantees that world powers will assist Iran in thwarting attempts to undermine its nuclear program.

Article 10 stipulates that world powers and Iran will foster "cooperation through training and workshops to strengthen Iran's ability to protect against, and respond to, nuclear security threats, including sabotage, as well as to enable effective and sustainable nuclear security and physical protection systems."

The clause did not appear in the interim deal in April, but was added to the final agreement at the last minute.   
(Israel Hayom)


Thwarting Iran's Regional Dominance - Abdulrahman al-Rashed  

The Iranian regime is like a monster that was tied to a tree and finally set loose in our region. This means we are on the threshold of a new, bloody era.

Verbal promises from Washington will not be enough, and Iranian pledges will not reassure us. 
(Al-Arabiya)


U.S. Gambles on Agreement - Ariel E. Levite

The nuclear deal finally thrashed out in Vienna is fundamentally different from the package we were led to expect. Iran's track record to date as well as its regime's character make this bet a huge gamble.
The writer, a senior associate in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, was the principal deputy director general for policy at the Israel Atomic Energy Commission from 2002 to 2007. He also served as deputy national security adviser for defense policy and was head of the Bureau of International Security and Arms Control in the Israel Ministry of Defense. 
(Ha'aretz)


Netanyahu's Credit for the Nuclear Deal - Amos Harel

Until 2009, Tehran seemed to be moving confidently toward the bomb. According to the memoirs of former leading members of the Obama administration, the Americans were genuinely apprehensive that Israel would mount an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities in 2010, 2011 and 2012. More than any other factor, it was concern about a possible Israeli attack that induced Obama to impose an unprecedented series of sanctions on Iran. The sanctions, in turn, devastated the Iranian economy and led to Iran negotiating an agreement.
(Ha'aretz)


Israeli Opposition: Deal Will Bring Chaos - Jeffrey Goldberg

When I interviewed the leader of Israel's Labor Party, Isaac Herzog, at the Brookings Institution's Saban Forum last December, he said, in reference to nuclear negotiations with Iran: "I trust the Obama administration to get a good deal." 

When I spoke with him on July 15, Herzog's message was very different. The deal in Vienna, he said, "will unleash a lion from the cage, it will have a direct influence over the balance of power in our region, it's going to affect our borders, and it will affect the safety of my children."

"Most of the Israeli body politic is worried about the agreement, and people need to understand our worries. We have respect for the United States, for this great ally and friend, and we don't want to be in a confrontation or clash. But we have to let people know that we think this is a dangerous situation." 
(Atlantic)


The Iran Deal's Collapsing Rationale - Bret Stephens

On Thursday, Moscow confirmed that it will proceed with the sale to Iran of its state-of-the-art S-300 surface-to-air missile system, notwithstanding the Iran deal's supposed five-year arms embargo. The sale means that a future president ordering airstrikes against Iran would do so against an adversary that can shoot American planes out of the skies.

Susan Rice insists that some of the $150 billion Iran gets in sanctions relief might be spent on Iran's "bad behavior in the region." So the U.S. government has agreed to release monies that it believes will be used to fund Iran's terrorist proxies on the intriguing rationale that, in order to prevent the Middle East from becoming a very dangerous place in the future, it is necessary to allow it to become a very dangerous place now. 

Iran will get its money. It will redouble its bad behavior. And sooner or later it will probably get its bomb. 
(Wall Street Journal)


On Iran, Congress Should Just Say No - Eric Edelman & Ray Takeyh

A careful examination of the nuclear agreement with Iran reveals that it concedes an enrichment capacity that is too large; sunset clauses that are too short; a verification regime that is too leaky; and enforcement mechanisms that are too suspect. The scale of imperfection is so great that the judicious course is to reject the deal and renegotiate a more stringent one.

Prior to the 2013 interim accord, the Obama administration's position rested on relatively sensible precepts. The U.S. insisted that, given Iran's practical needs, it should only have a symbolic enrichment program of a few hundred centrifuges. These prudent parameters were overtaken by a cavalcade of concessions. 

The U.S. in effect abandoned the goal of preventing development of an Iranian nuclear capability in favor of managing its emergence.
Eric Edelman, undersecretary of defense for policy from 2005 to 2009, is a scholar in residence at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Ray Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. 
(Washington Post)


"When the Villain Is Laughing, Something Is Wrong"
- Israeli UN Ambassador Ron Prosor

The Iranians are laughing in everyone's face. When the villain is laughing, you know something is wrong.

When we hear laughter from a country whose Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, says that even after the agreement is signed, Iran will continue the battle against the United States, Iran will continue supporting terrorists in the Middle East and around the world - something is wrong.

When we hear laughter from a country whose president, just days before the agreement was signed, marches at the head of a parade in Tehran in which American and Israeli flags are burned - something is wrong.

In future years, the consequences of this mistake will become clear to all, but for Israel, tomorrow is already too late.
(Permanent Mission of Israel to the UN)
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