White House: Israel 'cherry-picking' intel that distorts Iran talks

The Hill ^ | 02/18/15 02:34 PM EST | Martin Matishak

[SJackson]

Middle East and terrorism, occasional political and Jewish issues Ping List. High Volume

If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.

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[kulthur]

The reason is that Obama cannot announce the disarmament of Israel’s nuclear deterrant, which is part of the West’s nuclear posture, but he can signal withdrawal from Israel as her protector. This he will trade for Iran’s promise to not create nuclear weapons but only non-weaponized reactors, plus some bizarre nuclear material processing exchange mechanism with Russia or China. There is the matter of peaceful nuclear energy being some kind of institutionalized right.

Obviously Iran will weaponize, or try to, under the shadow of the Obama Admin’s commitment to “neutrality” towards “Israel-Palestine,” but the Iranians must also believe that a Republican Administration after 2016 will be the most likely scenario, and therefore this is just a wind-up by Obama-Iran(-Russia/China) to deliver another blow to the Republican Party, as they did under Bush. So they will probably announce during 2017 Jan-June, before the new Republican Admin has gotten itself together - just like 9/11.

If they get Hillary, or even worse Warren, all the better: they can stick to gradualism because they will be unopposed.

Meanwhile Russia will press its advantage in Ukraine and possibly, so they say, the Baltics. The Baltics is more likely under a Republican, because if they break NATO under a Republican, national security regime, NATO will truly be broken: obviously a Democrat would seek accomodation, not opposition. A Republican after that would be committed to a discreditted, hollow policy if confrontation, or very (un)helpful policy of isolation. The world would be wide open.

And If Iran comes online at the same time, how hard would it be for China to just walk into the first ring of islands it so obviously desires? And What would happen to the Japanese economy, or Europe’s, through all this? Etc.

But I probably will be proven wrong by events...

So we are probably screwed - but the world more than us.

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

“Surrendering” is a negotiating position?

Josh, you can’t be Ernest, can you?

PS: My son Joshua, is a combat veteran of Iraq. I guess Joshua Ernest is a combat veteran at the local bar because he sounds like he is batshit drunk.