Obama Still Wants a Deal with Iran

[Chieftain]

France's show of courage at Geneva may only delay the inevitable.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-still-wants-deal-iran_766567.html

3:05 PM, Nov 11, 2013 • By LEE SMITH

So the Obama administration is, after all, capable of tough, bull-necked diplomacy. These guys go for the jugular—for them diplomacy is a blood sport where anything is licit so long as victory is the endgame. Too bad the White House deploys those skills not against U.S. adversaries but against allies like Israel and France.

Haaretz reports that the administration misled Israel regarding the terms of the proposed interim agreement with Iran over its nuclear weapons program. One senior Israeli official explained that on Wednesday Israel had seen an outline that the Israelis “didn't love but could live with.” Thursday morning French and British officials, and not the White House, told the Israelis that the terms had changed and were much more favorable than what they’d been shown previously. “Suddenly it changed to something much worse that included a much more significant lifting of sanctions,” said the Israeli official. “The feeling was that the Americans are much more eager to reach an agreement than the Iranians.”

When Kerry landed in Geneva Friday, only a few small details were left to sort out before striking an agreement. But the problem wasn’t the Iranian side, rather it was France that wouldn’t sign off on the “bracketed text” in the draft document. In other words, after misleading the Israelis, the administration had hoped to present the deal as a fait accompli. In scuttling the agreement, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius saved the day—for the time being.

[Oceander]

I guess that infamous post-election "flexibility" of Obama's wasn't just meant for Putin alone.  As far as I can tell, Obama and his administration have cornered the market on foreign-affairs K-Y jelly.

[Chieftain]

It has long been rumored that Obama would rather deal with a nuclear armed Iran than try to use for to prevent them from getting nukes in the first place.  Obama thinks he can "manage" a nuclear Iran, but there are already signs of the start of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.

The Saudis have had a Chinese made medium range missile system for a number of years, and there is much speculation now that the Kingdom may well purchase Chinese nuclear warheads to fit the missiles they already have.  Several close Gulf allies of the Saudis may well follow suit...Allah knows they all have the money, and the Chinese are always looking for new sources of hard cash.

I have a real feeling of impending doom over all of this.  We may well be on the verge of a no-shit nuclear brush war.

[Oceander]

It has long been rumored that Obama would rather deal with a nuclear armed Iran than try to use for to prevent them from getting nukes in the first place.  Obama thinks he can "manage" a nuclear Iran, but there are already signs of the start of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.

The Saudis have had a Chinese made medium range missile system for a number of years, and there is much speculation now that the Kingdom may well purchase Chinese nuclear warheads to fit the missiles they already have.  Several close Gulf allies of the Saudis may well follow suit...Allah knows they all have the money, and the Chinese are always looking for new sources of hard cash.

I have a real feeling of impending doom over all of this.  We may well be on the verge of a no-shit nuclear brush war.

There was a news item from last week or so that the Saudis might be trying to deal for a nuke through Pakistan.

[Chieftain]

There was a news item from last week or so that the Saudis might be trying to deal for a nuke through Pakistan.

yah...I saw that too....I read Foreign Policy online (subscription required) and they had a well informed article a few weeks ago addressing that very point, and basically said that Pakistan could not sell the Saudis warheads because they simply will not mate on those Chinese missiles without extensive modifications of both missile and warhead, and the Saudis don't have the engineering skills to do that kind of work....hence the opinion that the Kingdom would simply buy the Chinese warheads that do fit quite well, as the Chinese use the same missiles for medium range nuke delivery.

No matter where they get them, a nuclear arms race in the Middle East would be an Obama legacy, as would an actual weapons release.

Really serious stuff....

[Oceander]

yah...I saw that too....I read Foreign Policy online (subscription required) and they had a well informed article a few weeks ago addressing that very point, and basically said that Pakistan could not sell the Saudis warheads because they simply will not mate on those Chinese missiles without extensive modifications of both missile and warhead, and the Saudis don't have the engineering skills to do that kind of work....hence the opinion that the Kingdom would simply buy the Chinese warheads that do fit quite well, as the Chinese use the same missiles for medium range nuke delivery.

No matter where they get them, a nuclear arms race in the Middle East would be an Obama legacy, as would an actual weapons release.

Really serious stuff....

A nuclear-armed Iran is the worst scenario.  Saudi Arabia could most likely be trusted to keep their nuclear nose clean - the Indians and Pakistanis haven't tried to annihilate each other, notwithstanding some dire forecasts when the Pakis went nuclear - but Iran could not.  A little too much ego on the part of some mullah, and a warhead would be on its way to Israel; that is not something Israel could just sit around and wait for, so a pre-emptive strike would probably be inevitable, and that might include a nuclear strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.  Israel would take some hellish blowback from something like that, but anything short of a so-called existential threat would be preferable to a nuclear-armed Iran, which would be an existential threat.

[Rapunzel]

Obama Valerie Jarrett Still Wants a Deal with Iran

[EC]

yah...I saw that too....I read Foreign Policy online (subscription required) and they had a well informed article a few weeks ago addressing that very point, and basically said that Pakistan could not sell the Saudis warheads because they simply will not mate on those Chinese missiles without extensive modifications of both missile and warhead, and the Saudis don't have the engineering skills to do that kind of work....hence the opinion that the Kingdom would simply buy the Chinese warheads that do fit quite well, as the Chinese use the same missiles for medium range nuke delivery.

I wouldn't be so sure. The engineering aspect in mating up the missiles and the warhead is a fairly trivial problem that any half way competent machine shop could solve. The change in flight dynamics with a different warhead would be a more difficult problem - you'd need a well trained team of actual rocket scientists and programmers to handle that. Wonder where you could get them? NASA, maybe? They have laid off a slew of skilled staff recently. The Chinese would happily loan out some of their engineers - they need the oil.