++Bibi has vowed to create an international coalition to stop a flawed agreement with Iran over its nuclear program. I guess he will get Putin and China to weight in. Or maybe Prince Talal, former owner of Fox News. After all Israel and the Saudis back the al Nusra front in Syria, according to former Israeli ambassador to the United States Oren.
++But I digress. Let's talk about the so-called Iran deal.
++John Kerry apparently met with the Iranian Foreign Minister in the hallway on the latest Iran negotiations. The Foreign Minister said that Rouhani is in trouble at home if a deal isn't made. The Revolutionary Guard and the hardliners oppose the deal like the Republicans here.
++I am afraid I have seen this play before. Under Khatami, who was actually more "liberal" than Rouhani,the Iranians wanted concessions to appease the hard-line during that period. The United States obliged by putting the dissident group the MeK on the terrorist list, something Hilary Clinton managed to end before she left as Secretary of State. But our concession--which was meaningful because the MeK was and is considered the mortal enemy of the regime--produced nothing. When the students shut down the entire country for a month, they asked Khatami to make modest moves for greater pluralism. He didn't and said he couldn't.
++So the pitch this time sounds too much like the old playbook. Rouhani now has a worse human rights record than Ahaminejad. Incredible as that seems.
++The rumor in Washington is that President obama made technical concessions to Iran. Notably that President Obama would allow for a greater number of centrifuges to exist as long as they were not operating. The Israelis insist that all the centrifuges be destroyed, something that is not politically practical.
++We do not know whether any of this is true about the proposed deal. So it is pure speculation and there are absolutely no reliable sources that indicate this is true.
++The narrative is that President Obama is so desperate for a deal he will accept a "flawed" one. That is the line being spread by the Revolutionary Guard, which is repeated as if Baghdad Bob's statements during the Iraq War were true.
++It is obvious that John Kerry had side conversations about the fight against ISIS and maybe even Yemen. The State Department claims these are not linked to a nuclear deal.
++Perhaps putting a wet blanket on everything is the IAEA's statement that the deal is very unlikely because Iran has not come clean about their previous nuclear weapons program.
++Iran is saying that an extension of the negotiations is not in their best interest. The counter-narrative in Tehran is that the country must prepare for a "resistance economy". The finance minister claims that Iran can weather this period of low oil prices. Maybe, Maybe not.
++So we are in the ballet of the end game of these negotiations. If there is no extension of the interim deal, which would be a decent temporary solution, then what does Bibi propose and will he man-up for an attack on Tehran because having no nuclear weapons can hardly be the reason for war.
++Think of how warped the reasoning has become. Before we claimed wrongly Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, so we invaded. Now because a country who claims it isn't working on a bomb refuses an agreement, we invade, bomb. Let's just be honest. We don't like you, we reserve the right to invade.
++Meanwhile Bibi's Likud are attacking Isaac Herzog for meeting with Kerry and saying he would demilitarize Gaza.
++Just a reminder. When Ronald Reagan was negotiating a nuclear arms reduction treaty with the Soviet Union, some of the same conservatives attacking Obama now over the possible Iran pact were the same ones who said that Reagan had weakened the United States. The conservative position is that there should be no negotiated arms treaties. Because we are exceptional.
++Interestingly,the Imperial Post is also sounding the alarm about this potential agreement, saying that Congress must vote on it. I'm not so clear about this because it is the P5+1, not a bilateral agreement between Washington and Tehran. Even the Post has a very hard time with multilateralism.
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