George Rebane
This supposed fresh start in Geneva only gives them new legitimacy, and new hope that they can have their bomb and enhanced global standing too. ('Springtime for Mullahs' 2oct09 WSJ)
Hot off the press – subsequent to President Obama’s flight to Copenhagen and personal appeal to the IOC on behalf of Chicago, that city was the first eliminated from the running for the 2016 Olympics.
After eight months in office this man has now shown himself to be ignorant, incompetent, indecisive, and apologetic for all things American. In his behalf, I can confidently conclude that he has attempted to do everything that he promised while campaigning, and we have every reason to believe that neither his energies nor direction will be diverted during the remainder of his term.
The latest significant poke in the eye, unnoticed by the MSM (aka Mostly Sleeping Media), was by the Iranian mullahs and Ahmedinejad in the multi-national Geneva talks yesterday. Obama’s delineation of his celebrated “line in the sand” did not even include the word ‘sanctions’ for non-compliance to past agreements and current demands about the recently revealed nuclear facility in Qom. As pointed out by the pre-eminent commercial intelligence analysis outfit Stratfor –
According to European foreign policy chief Javier Solana, the meeting’s host, Iran will allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) access to its heretofore secret enrichment site near Qom within two weeks. This is not much of a concession. As a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran is treaty-bound to allow such inspections (just as all other signatories, including the United States and Russia, are).
In exchange, the P-5+1 powers agreed to allow Iran to transfer small amounts of low-enriched uranium — typically enriched to 3-5 percent so that it can be used in a nuclear power reactor — to a third country for additional enrichment to the approximately 20 percent fissile mix required for the creation of medical isotopes. That additionally enriched uranium would then be imported back to Iran for medical use (Enrichment of 90 percent or more is required for the creation of a nuclear weapon.) Although on paper this seems like a small concession, it implicitly gives Iran the right to enrich uranium. This is guaranteed legally by the NPT, but only in exchange for full cooperation in inspections. Iran’s unwillingness to cooperate is the root of what has brought us to this point, so the P-5+1’s willingness to take Iran at its word is no small step.
So Iran took another page out of North Korea’s playbook and ropa-doped us by agreeing again to do something that they had already agreed to do years ago - not that they will do it, or that the IAEA will confirm any of these promises. (We recall that the IAEA are the UN clowns whose incompetence shielded Iran’s first nuclear weapons program for over a decade until it was revealed by an Iranian dissident group.) Ahmedinejad will no doubt be the recipient of this year’s coveted Kim Il Jong Prize for bamboozling the west. And for his part, Obama will be looking forward to a nice thank you note from Rio de Janeiro for his efforts in Copenhagen.
Meanwhile, he will have the next two weeks to find some more space in the sandbox in which to draw another line without getting his finger smelly.
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