A Sucker's Deal

A 'sucker's deal' -Charles Krauthammer, MD

A president desperate to change the subject and a secretary of state desperate to make a name for himself are reportedly on the verge of an “interim” nuclear agreement with Iran. France called it a “sucker’s deal.” France was being charitable.

Regime survival is the only thing the mullahs value above nuclear weapons. And yet precisely at the point of maximum leverage, President Obama is offering relief in a deal that is absurdly asymmetric: The West would weaken sanctions in exchange for cosmetic changes that do absolutely nothing to weaken Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.

Don’t worry, we are assured. This is only an interim six-month agreement to “build confidence” until we reach a final one. But this makes no sense. If at this point of maximum economic pressure we can’t get Iran to accept a final deal that shuts down its nuclear program, how in God’s name do we expect to get such a deal when we have radically reduced that pressure?

Don’t worry, we are assured. The sanctions relief is reversible. Nonsense. It was extraordinarily difficult to cobble together the current sanctions. It took endless years of overcoming Russian, Chinese and Indian recalcitrance, together with foot-dragging from Europeans making a pretty penny from Iran.

Once the relaxation begins, how do you reverse it? How do you reapply sanctions? There is absolutely no appetite for this among our allies. And adding back old sanctions will be denounced as a provocation that would drive Iran to a nuclear breakout — exactly as Obama is today denouncing congressional moves to increase sanctions as a deal-breaking provocation that might lead Iran to break off talks.

The mullahs are eager for this interim agreement with its immediate yield of political and economic relief. Once they get it, we will have removed their one incentive to conclude the only agreement that is worth anything to us — a verifiable giving up of their nuclear program.

Brilliant.
[Jewish World Review]
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Israel: No Credible American Military Option - David Horovitz

Israel always knew the Obama Administration was all about "engagement" and that it would keep open the door to a diplomatic arrangement with Iran almost indefinitely. But there were those in Jerusalem who did not rule out an American resort to force, under certain circumstances, until the Syrian chemical weapons crisis over the summer.

At that juncture, the horrified American public and Congressional reaction to the prospect of imminent conflict with Syria further hardened the Administration's determination to do whatever it could to resolve the Iranian nuclear crisis without resorting to force. Since then, Israel has broadly concluded that there is no credible American military option.
(Times of Israel)
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Why Saudi Arabia Hates the Iran Deal - David Kenner

Saudi Arabia sees any realistic deal as American acquiescence to Tehran's hegemonic ambitions in the Middle East, analysts and former U.S. officials say.

"[Saudi officials] don't think this leads to a deal that leads to peace, they think this leads to Iranian domination of the Gulf," said Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "To their minds it doesn't do anything about Iranian ambitions, it just takes the United States out of the equation as a force that's helping box Iran in."
(Foreign Policy)
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Lost Cause in Geneva - Ari Shavit

You want the real truth? The Americans are worn out.

Going to Geneva is an effort to postpone the end, so that a nuclear Iran doesn't emerge now, on Barack Obama's watch, but immediately afterward.

But what the Americans haven't taken into account is: Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey and Israel. These countries now feel cheated, betrayed and threatened.
(Ha'aretz)
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