US Secretary of State John Kerry (R) speaks during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, March 11, 2015. (photo credit:REUTERS)
Eli Lake, Bloomberg: Everyone But Kerry Expected 'Anytime, Anywhere' Inspections
When Secretary of State John Kerry testifies in the coming days before Congress about the deal he just negotiated with Iran, he will have some explaining to do.
Some Congressional leaders were under the impression that while Kerry was at the talks in Vienna, he was pressing Iran to allow "anytime, anywhere" access for U.N. inspectors to examine sites suspected of nuclear activity.
Kerry's account differs: "This is a term that honestly I never heard in the four years that we were negotiating," he said on "Face the Nation" on Sunday. "It was not on the table."
Those words are likely to haunt Kerry this week when he goes before Congress. This is not how others in the administration described the deal in April. Other senior officials said the U.S. was pressing for such access, known as snap inspections, that wouldn't give Iran the time to hide suspicious activity.
WNU Editor: I do expect John Kerry will be facing some hard questions on the Iranian nuclear deal next week, but someone needs to question the U.S. Senate on why were/are they tuned out on some of the more important provisions of the deal .... such as on the topic of inspections. My gut is telling me that Senate Republicans knew where all of this was heading, and what was important to them was to position themselves so that they would not be blamed if the nuclear talks had ended in disarray. As a result .... this is now all be for show. The Republicans will show that they are critical of the President, will point out the shortcomings of the deal, and will vote against it knowing that there are not enough votes to overturn a Presidential veto. This is Washington politics at its worse.
2 comments:
Larry, Curly or Moe could do a better job of explaining while they were "in character"
I think the topic of inspections is a short coming so if the Republicans are going to point out the shortcomings then it would seem likely they would point this out. It seems the main reason for Iran to develop nuclear weapons is to attack America. As such, it would seem logical that the party (America) who would be most adversely affected by Iranian nuclear weapons would be within reason to expect to be involved in any inspections. If the Republicans were to point this out, this would not be Washington politics at its worst.
Unlike a number of talking head pundits I was never under any delusion that we were or could expect to get any kind of good deal. If this is likened to a poster game, Iran had/has the equivalent of a royal flush. The United States has/has nothing. Even if the United States "walks away" it makes no difference. Regardless what the US does or did the sanctions were going to be gone, weapons embargoes were going to be gone, the funds would be freed up, and Iran's path for nuclear weapons was going to be clear. With the hand Iran had in this game having Russia, China, and the other members of the P5+1 essentially on their side I'm not sure Iran got such a good deal. With this kind of advantage it seems Iran should have been able to get the sanctions lifted immediately, the weapons embargoes lifted immediately, no inspections of nuclear sites, and no so called "snap back" provision on sanctions.
Given that there was no possibility of America being able to block Iran's path to a nuclear weapon, I have yet to hear from the Republicans on how they are going to deal with this. Perhaps this is Washington politics at its worst. Criticize a deal you don't like, distance yourself from it, and when Iran acquires nuclear weapons or is caught cheating they can look good or at least less bad all the while offering nothing constructive. Now this would be Washington politics or the politics of any government at its worst.
The Republicans would do well to point out the flaws with inspections. Given that this is the reality of the deal and there's no way the Iranians would have allowed this otherwise. In other words, failure on the part of the Americans to "deal" likely means no inspections anywhere at any time and no sanctions snap back provision. To express another way, with the bad "cards" the Americans had during this entire process, there was no way to get any better of an agreement. Now the Republicans could discuss how we move forward with this reality. One of my suggestions on this would be to work first and foremost on improving our relations with Russia and China. Find ways we can enlist their help in this area. These are the two most powerful countries on earth. As such, even separate from the Iran issue working to improve relations with these nations should be a top priority. After this try and improve relations with the other P5+1 members countries whose people will be on the inspections teams. Even without this improved relations with Russia and China would be extremely helpful as they could communicate to Iran that there may be significant costs to trying to harm America. We are going to need their help on this one. The Republicans could put forth proposals on how we go about improving relations with these countries.
The Republicans could also focus on how we enforce the provisions of the deal. Again, see above. We will likely need assistance from Russia, China, and other countries here.
Now pointing out the flaws of the deal without proposing solutions, as the inspections provisions seem to be a major one, would seem to be politics at its worst. Additionally, criticisms without taking into the realities of the situation with Iran or those faced by any Americans trying to negotiate with Iran in the format of the P5+1 is misguided, foolish, and does nothing to advance American national security interests.
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