Iran deal, good deal, or bad deal?

[HairOfTheDog]

So, why do you think that the leaders of the US, Russia, China, France, Germany and the UK negotiated a deal which conflicts absolutely with Netanyahu's stance if "they knew he was right"?

My guess would be since there is no way to stop Iran now, the 5+1 figure they should at least make some money via the deal. Once the sanctions lift, everyone stands to benefit financially from being able to sell goods into the Iranian market again. The optimist in me wants to believe they want to lift sanctions to make it easier to get in and disrupt their program a la some sort of program like Stuxnet again... but I'm not betting the house on that.

Meanwhile, Iran has been backing Hezbollah and providing them with money, means, and weapons they have consistently used to attack Israel. So I think Israel is correct to continue to raise the alarm bell on the Iranian nuclear program.

Iran's support of Hezbollah is no secret. How does that relate to Iran's nuclear capabilities? It doesn't.

Continuing to have exactly no direct monitoring capabilities over Iran's nuclear capabilities benefits the US exactly how? It doesn't.

But, to insist that "they knew he was right" -- in reference to the White House's (and the five other global leaders') view of Netanyahu's stance on negotiating with Iran -- makes no sense to me at all.

While I don't speak to anyone at the White House anymore, I do pay attention to administration officials when they change their story. Or when they come out and flat admit they were lying. So I'm not insisting on something, I'm merely going by what Energy Secretary Moniz told us. And I'll agree, it doesn't make any sense to me why they would lie or endeavor to contradict our ally either.

Exactly. So, you have no basis to speak for the White House and proclaim that "they know he's right". What you mean is "I, Jimbone, am convinced that he's right and I think the White House thinks he's right too". Big difference. In any case, I personally do not believe that the White House shares your view.

Emphasis mine on the salient issue that the US and Israel shared similar - if not the same - estimates on weapons grade material production.

"Speaking to reporters and editors at our Washington bureau on Monday, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz acknowledged that the U.S. has assessed for several years that Iran has been two to three months away from producing enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon. When asked how long the administration has held this assessment, Moniz said: "Oh quite some time." He added: "They are now, they are right now spinning, I mean enriching with 9,400 centrifuges out of their roughly 19,000. Plus all the . . . . R&D work. If you put that together it's very, very little time to go forward. That's the 2-3 months.

Here is the puzzling thing: When Obama began his second term in 2013, he sang a different tune. He emphasized that Iran was more than a year away from a nuclear bomb, without mentioning that his intelligence community believed it was only two to three months away from making enough fuel for one, long considered the most challenging task in building a weapon. Today Obama emphasizes that Iran is only two to three months away from acquiring enough fuel for a bomb, creating a sense of urgency for his Iran agreement. "

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/20...e-a-secret

I don't argue that there are different and changing assessments in regards to how far off Iran is from actually being able to launch a nuclear bomb. Some claims are self-serving rhetoric, some are based on bad intel, some are based on worst case estimations, some are based on best case estimations...Which is precisely why having visibility via inspections and improved communications is beneficial to the US and our partners.

However, I addressed Netanyahu's claims regarding Iran's nuclear bombing readiness made over the last 2+ decades. If you're contending that the White House believes that Netanyahu is magic and has been accurately making the same time-immune claims all along, then Netanyahu and the White House believe that Iran has had the ability to launch a nuclear attack since the mid 90s. I don't think the White House believes that Netanyahu has been accurate every time he's made the same claim though -- that defies logic and common sense. One thing's certain however, both Netanyahu and the White House know for a fact that Iran has never launched such an attack.

And now, with the ability to control their nuclear progress and with increased global visibility via inspections and monitoring, we'll have much better data for assessing Iran's abilities and intentions to do so in the future.