The Watcher’s Council

AFP Photo/Jason Reed

Every week on Monday morning, the Council and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher’s Forum with short takes on a major issue of the day. This week’s question: What is your reaction to the news of the pending deal with Iran?

Bookworm Room: I am disgusted, but not surprised. Obama made it clear from his first day in office that he wanted to pander to Iran and destroy Israel. Now that he doesn’t have to worry about reelection anymore, he’s got the flexibility he wanted and needed to strike this disgraceful bargain.

Even if one assumes that Obama genuinely believes that he’s got a deal with Iran (rather than assuming that Obama enjoys being in bed with genocidal maniacs), that “benefit of the doubt” reveals him to be insanely stupid and lacking in any self-awareness. By secretly lifting sanctions months ago, he told the Iranians that they could do anything to him and get anything from him. He’s so convinced of his own wonderfulness that they can bribe him simply by feeding his ego.

All around, as Netanyahu said, this is “a very, very bad deal.” Israel’s only hope is… Israel. I pray daily that she’s up to the task of dealing with whatever comes her way. I have great faith in Israel, though, and in Netanayu too, so that helps.

Liberty’s Spirit: I have always said that Obama wanted Iran to develop a bomb. The Left has always seen Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons as the threat to Middle East peace. The Left sees a threatened Israel as a nation forced to do as the USA and the EU want. A fait accompli, as it were, that a now vulnerable Israel has to accede to the Left’s demands to pull back from Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem and the Golan, or the world will let a nuclear armed Islamist nation commit genocide. As if a weakened Israel, both militarily and territorially, wouldn’t signal the same genocidal event on the part of the Arab and Moslem world.

It is also quite interesting to note, that at no time does the Obama administration or the EU hold the Palestinian Leadership and the Arab/Moslem world to any level of decency and requirements for peace. The raging meltdown of the Arab states surrounding Israel, the human rights violations in the Arab world, the misogyny, Jew-hatred and virulent anti-freedom agenda in these Arab nations also seems to play no part of the equation in how to approach the peace process. Apparently the only nation that is causing trouble in the Middle East is Israel because she refuses to comply with the demands of these tyrannical, dictatorial, and antisemitic Arab leaders to commit suicide.

The question that needs to be asked is whether the USA administration and the EU are so inept in their understanding about how the Middle East works, that they truly appear to not comprehend what constitutes honor, power and strength in that part of the world. Or on the other hand, are these “world leaders” truly so antisemitic that their goal is the murder of another 6 million Jews. Sadly, it appears perhaps to be a bit of both. As the renowned author, Howard Jacobson recently lamented, “When will the Jews be forgiven for the Holocaust?”

The Noisy Room: Excerpted from my submission this week:

Obama’s betrayal of Israel is stunning and completely predictable. It’s right on schedule along with the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. I don’t know how anyone could be surprised by this. Whispers are on the wind that a nuclear deal is within reach between the US and Iran, but the US has already been quietly lifting financial sanctions, enabling the terrorist Islamic state. While Obama and his Muslim acolytes have been busy emboldening, financing and arming Iran to destroy tiny Israel, he has distracted America with a myriad of emergencies and shiny objects all of which spell death to Israel and eventually death to America. The infidels have been duped and Iran is now simulating missile attacks on Israel, getting ready for the big show to come.

Obama and the Progressives screamed to high heaven over cross-hairs being used on targets in connection to guns and Sarah Palin — Iran attacking Israel, not so much. The Obama Administration began softening sanctions on Iran right after the election of Iran’s new president in June, months before the current round of nuclear talks in Geneva or the phone chats between the two power brokers in September. That was five months ago and long before that, all of this was already a foregone conclusion. Obama never intended to stop Iran or protect Israel. Quite the opposite. We all saw it coming and no one did a thing to stop it. Shame on all of us. All of the feigned pressure on Iran’s banks, the squeezing of their coffers has been for show. Like everything else to do with Obama, it is a lie… a show for the masses and merely gauze covering his true intentions. Obama wants a Caliphate; he wants a worldwide Islamic supremacy and he kneels before Islam.

Netanyahu and Israel are stating that the US negotiating with Iran is a mistake of historic and epic proportions. I would call it apocalyptic. While Kerry clownishly plays at diplomacy, he just can’t hide his evil, smirkish glee at sticking it to the Little Satan. Selfish, globalist, wealthy elitist that he is, Kerry believes he is above the fray. But just like Obama and the rest, when they have served their purpose, they will most likely meet their end as all despotic tyrants do — violently. If not, they will be protected while others die which they are fine with and their fate will be determined by God who, I wager, will have a thing or two to say to them.

In the meantime, Israel will not go as a lamb to the nuclear slaughter and will not be bound with deals with the devil.

The US is on the wrong side. We have gone to bed with evil and are actively assisting it. This will not end well for America. It is becoming more and more obvious that we have learned nothing from history and we have turned our back on God. If so, He will surely turn His back on us for betraying His people. America has allowed Islamists and Marxists to infiltrate her government and positions of power. We have willingly submitted to Progressive diktats and humbled ourselves before a dictator, eschewing our Founding Principles and our Constitution in the name of security and equality. What does one call self-induced slavery and national suicide? When does the freest nation the earth has ever known, slip over the edge into totalitarian darkness and did anyone even notice?

Israel’s mistake was even bothering to listen to Obama and his cohorts. They should have known better. But they wanted to show the world that they were better than the tyrants; that they made every effort to avoid war and bloodshed. For their attempts, they are being rewarded with lies, deception and betrayal. They may be rewarded with war and death. In the end, God walks with Israel and I’ve got to tell her enemies, I wouldn’t want to be you guys. No way. ‘Vengeance is mine,’ sayeth the Lord.

Netanyahu’s protestations fall completely on deaf ears and blind bureaucrats. While Netanyahu slams Obama and Kerry on their groveling before the Mullahs, Israel girds her loins for war. She will stand alone. Obama’s betrayal of Israel and arming of Iran is almost complete.

Simply Jews: Foreboding mixed with frustration.

GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD: News that the nuclear Iran P5 plus 1 hook up are close to a deal is mindnumbingly scary. And totally uncool. After all, Iran has such a weak hand and giving up stuff to hope for the best seems – well, retarded – in the classical sense no less – of limited intellectual and emotional development.

And, unless the West totally caves in and gives Iran everything she wants – it’s a total bust.

So far – believe it or don’t – France is the hardliner here against cutting any deals.

See, under 44′s trip – Great Satan semi sorta stopped her eons long goal of Regime Changing the illeget Preacher Command in Persia to one of containment via the pocketbook.

The administration and Congress are gambling that sanctions will be enough to overcome the regime’s chronic dishonesty. Economic pain will be so intense, the theory holds, that eventually Persia will play by Western rules.

In other words, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Revolutionary Guards and Rouhani — who had a not-insignificant role in developing Iran’s nuclear program in the 1990s — would be willing to admit that “evil incarnate” (Khamenei’s update to “Great Satan”), against which Iran’s very identity has been built, has defeated their nuclear aspirations.

Every country has an economic breaking point. Tho achieving that moment in the Islamic Republic will be extraordinarily difficult because such compromise is tantamount to spiritual suicide.

Forget the new Pres in Iran or his posse of nuclear negotiators.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, remain firmly in control of the country and have given no indication they are prepared to compromise on Iran’s illicit nuclear program.

The IRGC is Iran’s political, military and economic powerhouse. It sponsors and commits terrorism in its ongoing efforts to export the Islamic Revolution. It arrests, imprisons, tortures and executes domestic dissidents to protect the regime at home. The Guards also stand to benefit most from the nuclear program, which would make Iran a dominant regional power overnight.

This is why its leaders have been adamant that, contrary to Rouhani’s public assertions, there is no room for a nuclear compromise.

Iranian leaders probably are entering these negotiations for one reason: to test 44′s mettle.

They want to see whether Iran can have the bomb and sanctions relief.

The strategy for doing so isn’t complicated. The regime could suspend work at the Arak heavy-water facility, the regime’s plutonium path to a bomb, and stop enriching uranium to 20 percent, the big step in processing it to weapons-grade.

Yet sans a verifiable end to centrifuge production, the regime could continue to manufacture centrifuges, shrinking the time required to convert unprocessed uranium to bomb-grade stock. With enough advanced centrifuges, a 20 percent stockpile becomes operationally much less relevant given the increased speed of processing.

The only real compromise Khamenei would be making here is with the nuclear calendar. More time would be needed to develop a rapid, undetectable “breakout” capacity, which is estimated will happen by mid-2014. If the regime could trade heavy-water processing and uranium enriched to 20 percent in return for weakening of the interbank transfer sanctions, regaining the right to trade in gold or loosened restrictions on using euros, then it could easily gain $50 billion — a big sum for a regime that has only $20 billion in fully accessible hard currency.

Iran still has about $50 billion of locked-up cash that can be used for barter trade in a handful of countries. Given Iran’s currency reserves, even without a lessening of economic pressure, nuclear physics is still outpacing sanctions and diplomacy.

Supreme Leader can’t allow the West to stop centrifuge manufacturing. He cannot allow Great Satan to know where all of the centrifuges are being built or how the regime has avoided sanctions on “dual-use” imports. Such knowledge could massively delay or even end the weapons program, either through a preemptive strike or better sanctions enforcement.

Nor can Iran’s supreme leader implement any additional protocol of the Non-Proliferation Treaty that would allow U.N. inspectors to track centrifuge plants, search military bases (where the regime probably hides its most sensitive nuclear-weapons research) or debrief all of Iran’s nuclear scientists.

Until Iran has agreed to comply with its most basic international obligations — related to nuclear, terrorism, and human rights issues — the West and especially 44 must unite in applying unrelenting pressure on the regime.

Otherwise, there is little chance of success in the impending negotiations.

The Right Planet: Feels like a betrayal to me. For an administration that seems so willing to cede American sovereignty over to the UN, they seem more than willing to ignore the fact that the UN Security Council’s has called for Iran to quit enriching uranium for the past seven years. And now the Obama Administration is going to unfreeze billions in Iranian assets? Why? Why would the administration reward Iran now? Allowing Iran to develop a nuclear weapon–and ignoring all the “death to America,” “wipe Israel off the map, and “here come da Mahdi” rhetoric–is beyond foolish; it’s dangerous. It’s utter insanity to stand idly by allow a nuclear arms race to spiral out of control in the Middle East. I completely understand Benjamin Netanyahu’s outrage at the machinations of the Obama Administration in regard to Iran’s nuclear aspirations. Perhaps the administration should spend less time spying on our allies and putting more effort pressure on “Preacher Command” in Tehran. But we’re doing just the opposite. No good will come from it. How can it?

The Glittering Eye: I’ve put most of my thoughts on this subject here. In summary, IMO our foreign policy has been seriously misguided, especially WRT the Middle East, for at least the last 30 years and after so many missteps there aren’t a lot of good alternatives left. I further think that a nuclear arms race in the Middle East is not in our interests and we should be prepared to go to fairly extreme lengths to prevent one. Nuclear weapons would not merely be regime insurance for the mullahs, as some have suggested. I strongly suspect they would use them to cement what they believe is their rightful role not only as the Middle East’s regional superpower but as a viable alternative to the KSA as the leading voice of Islam.

All of that having been said, it’s darned hard to comment intelligently on an agreement whose contours aren’t really known as yet. I’m just glad that the French are playing Bad Cop this time around. It would be nice to think it was a role mutually agreed-upon for them, but I suspect they’re just enjoying throwing a monkey wrench into a White House production.