German Foreign Minister Frank Walter Steinmeier (L), French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius (2ndL), Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (4thL), EU Deputy Secretary General for the External Action Service Helga Schmid (8thL), European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini (C), U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (5thR), Under Secretary for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman (4thR) and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (R) meet in Palais Coburg, the venue for nuclear talks, in Vienna, Austria July 13, 2015. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger
Reuters: Iran, big powers clinch landmark nuclear deal: Iranian diplomats
Iran and six major world powers have reached a nuclear deal after more than a decade of on-off negotiation, granting Tehran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program, Iranian diplomats said on Tuesday.
The agreement aims to limit Iran's nuclear work for more than a decade in exchange for the gradual suspension of sanctions that have slashed Iran's oil exports and crippled its economy.
"All the hard work has paid off and we sealed a deal. God bless our people," one diplomat told Reuters on condition of anonymity. A second Iranian official confirmed the agreement.
The foreign ministers of Iran and the six powers will meet at 0830 GMT (4.30 a.m. ET) at the United Nations center in Vienna and a news conference will follow, a spokeswoman for the European Union said on Tuesday.
WNU Editor: The details are still secret .... but I suspect that it is only a matter of time before they are leaked. Once that happens, we can then properly assess this agreement.
More News On Today's Announcement That A Formal Nuclear Deal With Iran Has Been Announced
Formal nuclear deal has been reached with Iran -- AP
The Latest: Israeli official: Iran deal a 'license to kill' -- AP
Iran Nuclear Deal Is Reached After Long Negotiations -- NYT
Deal reached on Iran nuclear program, diplomats say -- CNN
Iran nuclear agreement 'reached' - diplomats in Vienna -- BBC
Iran Nuclear Deal: Tehran, World Powers Agree to Historic Pact -- NBC
5 comments:
AND SO BEGINS THE START OF US OVERTHROW OF IRAN
How exactly is the US going to overthrow Iran? Many Americans are worried about the opposite scenario. "Normalizing" relations with Iran will enable Iran a much greater opportunity to undermine America, its interests, and perhaps even overthrowing its government. This type of scenario is far more likely than the US overthrowing Iran. Iran has the backing of Russia the world's most powerful country, America faces an enormous and often hostile world news media environment placing it under a huge and often uncomfortable microscope.
Iran does not face this hostile media environment nor does America have a big powerful ally like Russia in their corner. Furthermore the other members of the P5+1 are all pro-Iranian and anti-American. As such, America will face close scrutiny to ensure it complies with any agreement. Iran will not face this kind of scrutiny. Additionally, the agreement as I understand it will bar American inspectors from any facility. Since the "International Community" with the possible exception of Israel and a few gulf Arab states are firmly in Iran's corner, it would seem they would simply rubber stamp whatever Iran wants.
Personally I would like to move to some type of UN Tribunal where America and Iranian differences going back many decades can be resolved in a fair and judicious manner. Unfortunately, at this time, I do not think America can get a fair trial. Even if America could get a fair trial and Iran were determined to owe it financial restitution, how does America collect? In other words, there's no way to ensure Iranian compliance.
Very respectfully, it seems VERY unlikely the US could overthrow Iran. Now if it could somehow change the direction of a country that poses an existential threat to it such as Iran does to America I could see why an American leader might wish to pursue such a policy.
I do believe there are many decades of mistrust on both sides probably justified by both sides that will somehow need to be worked through. Hopefully this agreement can be a place to start.
With that said, the bottom line was always, deal or deal, 1.) Iran is going to get nuclear weapons, and 2.)the sanctions are going to be lifted in full sooner rather than later. As such, this is what the American government needs to be preparing for. I recognized this over 8 years ago. Unfortunately we've lost valuable time that could have been spent preparing for this and, in the short to mid term, we've had a colossal waste of time with negotiations. Now, as stated previously, if this can help to build trust, perhaps it will be a good thing.
Unfortunately to me it does not seem likely we can trust a country whose calling card seems to remain "death to America." Life I said all relevant departments of the US government need to be preparing for a nuclear armed Iran completely unhindered by sanctions or arms embargoes. We cannot prevent this. We never were able to.
"1.) Iran is going to get nuclear weapons, and "
It would be better to develop more robust, more reliable anti-missile technology and have the time to deploy it. This bad deal does not do that.
"2.)the sanctions are going to be lifted in full sooner rather than later."
the sanctions could end with regime change. Iran is losing Syria and thus its' crescent. Hezbollah has lost 1,000 front line fighters in Syria and is now worried about maintaining control in Lebanon. Except for the rump state of Shia Iraq and northern Yemen, Iran has not held onto anything or gained.
Iran did not come to bargaining table except that they were hurting financially. So the sanctions were effective.
A religious theocracy that is militaristic will have a hard time hanging on to power when Syria slips out of its' grasp and Lebanon is teetering and 2/3rds of Iraq is lost. Combined with financial hardship there will be coups or street protests that will bring down the government.
But Obama just handed them, but not us a good deal. He threw them a life line and they will repay it by biting than hand that helped. Obama's words about those deal are as good as his famous lie of "If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor.
Aizino,
Thank you for the reply to my post. I agree with your idea of developing more reliable missile defense technology. Since we did not spend the last 8+ years doing that, we've lost valuable time. While the deal as I understand it now, allows for some time for a full lifting of sanctions, I don't seriously expect anyone outside of perhaps America, Israel, or the Gulf Arab states to abide by any of this. As such, sanctions are de facto over as they always were and always were going to be no matter what America did or did not do. As for missile defense, nothing we were doing was ever expected to counter Russia and now the Russians expect us to give up even the limited things we were currently doing. As stated, we could have spent the time that no deal would have allowed us to further work on limited missile defense.
Now as for sanctions ending with regime change any new regime would either be as hostile to America as the old one or more hostile, if such is possible. As such, while I can understand the desire of some perhaps to "stick with the devil you know as opposed to the one you don't know" I can't support such a position. Besides I would not be so quick to count out Iran with regards to Syria, Iraq, or Yemen for that matter. After all they have the support of Russia and I simply don't think Russia is going to allow Syria especially to be lost.
Now if we wanted better relations with Iran I would have suggested to focus on Russia their chief patron and the most powerful military force on earth. Perhaps doing this could have helped as the Russians would have/could have explained to the Iranians the benefit of "playing nice" with America and being nice to America.
Bottom line: I've never been under any delusion as to the fact that Iran was going to develop nuclear weapons, sanctions would be lifted, and there was NOTHING we could do to stop it. I did, however, expect Israel and perhaps the Gulf Arab states to stop this. For whatever reason or reasons known only to them, they chose not to. As such, we are left with these stark realities and any new government in Iran will continue hostility to America and will continue the same polices. No good options for us here. Time permitting I will post more later. There's been much interesting commentary on this.
All of this said, I would not have been negotiating with Iran. While Iran may have tried to make it seem as they were somehow forced to the negotiating table, this does not seem likely. In actuality the Americans probably felt forced. After all I was never under any delusion that Iran would not acquire nuclear weapons and the sanctions would not be lifted in full no matter what America did or did not do. As such, why waste time negotiating. Simply tell all departments of the US government relevant to national defense to prepare for a nuclear armed Iran and an Iran unencumbered by sanctions and act accordingly. Furthermore understand if the regime is overthrown the new regime will be hostile to us or perhaps more so, if possible
Now if Sunni (Gulf Arab States) and Shia (Iran and its Syrian allies along with portions of Saudi Arabia) tear one another apart sooner rather than later and this allows Israel our most important ally some modicum of peace perhaps there is some silver lining to this otherwise bad deal. Of course I was never under any delusion that the US was negotiating from a position of strength as some idiot talking head pundits have suggested. If it were me, I'd have walked away with some modicum of dignity. Not only did we not do that but we did not improve our relations with either Russia or China in this process or so it would seem. As I stated, God help us all!!
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