Ramifications of Iran Deal

Does the Deal Makes It Less Likely Iran Will Get a Nuke?
- Herb Keinon

As to the argument that the only alternative to the deal is war, Israel has consistently promoted two different alternatives. "First, Israel supported the policy of 'dismantle for dismantle,' whereby the sanctions regime would be dismantled only when Iran's military nuclear program is dismantled. This policy was based on successive UN Security Council resolutions and was U.S. policy until 2013. Its implementation would have genuinely closed the Iranian nuclear file."

In the absence of a complete roll-back of Iran's nuclear infrastructure, there should at least be a significant roll-back, with severe restrictions on Iran lifted only when it stopped its regional aggression, support of global terrorism and efforts to destroy Israel.
(Jerusalem Post)


Iran Deal and the "Problem of Conjecture" - Niall Ferguson

Why should Iran suddenly mend its ways? In return for merely slowing down its pursuit of nuclear weapons, it is being handed up to $150 billion in previously frozen assets, a commercial bonanza as sanctions are lifted, and the prospect of an end to conventional arms and ballistic-missile embargoes after, respectively, five and eight years. All Iran has to do is keep the International Atomic Energy Agency happy that it is sticking to its nuclear commitments. There will be no "snap back" of sanctions if Tehran opts to use its new resources to double or quadruple its support for Hizbullah and Hamas, the Assad regime in Syria, and the Houthi rebellion in Yemen.

Today, faced with two forms of Islamic extremism, Shiite and Sunni, we are tilting toward Iran, the principal sponsor of the former.

We are alienating our allies, moderate Sunnis as well as Israelis. No one can say for sure what will come of the president's strategy. It may magically produce equilibrium in the Middle East, as he hopes. But all the evidence points the other way: toward a continuing escalation of violence in the region.
The writer is professor of history at Harvard University.
(Wall Street Journal)


The Iran Deal and the Rut of History - Leon Wieseltier 

The text of the agreement states that the signatories will submit a resolution to the UN Security Council "expressing its desire to build a new relationship with Iran." Not a relationship with a new Iran, but a new relationship with this Iran, as it is presently constituted - that is to say, theocratic, oppressive, xenophobic, aggressive, anti-Semitic, misogynistic, and homophobic.

In his recent Iranian New Year message, Obama exhorted the "people of Iran...to speak up for the future [they] seek." The last time the people of Iran spoke up to their government, they left their blood on the streets.

If I could believe that the agreement marked the end of Iran's quest for a nuclear weapon, I would support it. I do not support it because it is only a deferral and a delay. Every pathway is not cut off. Moreover, if even a fraction of the revenues returned to Iran are allocated to its vile adventures beyond its borders, the U.S. will have subsidized an expansion of its own nightmares.
(Atlantic)
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