The White House on Dick Cheney & the Iran Deal

Missed this before now somehow.  The music sucks, and I kinda hate conceptually posting something from the White House itself, but the point still needs to be made apparently about the undead corpse of Darth Cheney, and other warmongering neo-con assholes like him, whether they be fellow Ford-admin. revanchists, radicals of the Newt Gingrich 'revolution' in the 'nineties, or latter-day hangers-on like Sarah Palin, that they have been consistently wrong on foreign policy, over and over and again, at the expense not just of the American pocket-book, and thousands of dead US soldiers, but at the expense of millions of civilian lives destroyed, damaged, or displaced, as one society after another is wrecked in their real-life game of Risk.*


* And no, the Obama administration is far, far from blameless, with say its similar reckless destabilisation in Libya & Syria.

Drum & Waldman on the Political Risks of the Iran Deal

Paul Waldman writes about the asymmetric political risks that Democrats and Republicans face over the Iran nuclear deal:

If the agreement proves to be a failure — let’s say that Iran manages to conduct a nuclear weapons program in secret, then announces to the world that they have a nuclear weapon — it will indeed be front-page news, and the Democrats who supported the deal might suffer grave political consequences. So in order to vote yes, they had to look seriously at the deal and its alternatives, and accept some long term political peril.

By contrast, there probably is less long term risk for Republicans in opposing the deal.

...If the deal works as intended, what will be the outcome be? Iran without nuclear weapons, of course, but that is a state of being rather than an event. There will be no blaring headlines saying, “Iran Still Has No Nukes — Dems Proven Right!”...

In a way, it's actually worse than this. Even if Iran doesn't get nukes there will be endless opportunities to raise alarms that it's going to happen any day now. Israeli leaders have been warning that Iran is three months away from a nuclear bomb for over two decades. There will always be new studies, new developments, and new conflicts that provide excuses for hysterical Fox News segments telling us we're all about to die at the hands of the ayatollahs.

...So have no worries. Iran could be nuclear free in 2050 and Bill Kristol's grandkids will still be warning everyone else's grandkids that the ayatollahs are this close to getting a bomb. It's kind of soothing, in a way, like a squeaky door that you'd miss if you ever oiled it.

Kevin Drum on the political risks of the nuclear deal with Iran.

He's right in the short-to-medium term of course, but if the West genuinely does manage to normalise relations with a peaceful non-nuclear Iran (still a very dubious prospect), my guess is that Bill Kristol's progeny will have found a new go-to bogeyman long before 2050, with the Iranian nuclear affair a curious historical footnote.  Here's hoping.

Fox 'News' on that 'Bad Deal'

So, I find myself wondering*, what does Fox News have to say about the deal the Obama administration has apparently reached with Iran ?  A measured 'let's wait and see, while we digest the details' perhaps ?  No, of course not.

Officials: Iran nuclear deal fuels Middle East arms race, boosts Russia’s influence

Those 'officials' being, apparently, professional neo-con lunatic and bomb-thrower John Bolton, perpetual (to the point that it almost seems like compensation for something) warmonger Lindsey Graham, an obscure first-term senator called Ben Sasse, and some unknown 'intelligence official'.

The newly announced Iran nuclear deal and the negotiations leading up to it already are fueling an all-but-declared nuclear arms race in the Middle East, according to current and former government officials who say the situation also creates an opening for Russia to exert more influence in the region. 

As opposed to the inevitable arms-race that would result in the absence of a deal, as Iran felt compelled to seek a deterrent against an attack by the United States or Israel, and the almost inevitable move of Iran closer into Russia's orbit.

"We have given Iran the path it has been seeking for almost 35 years. The other states in the region are not going to sit idly by, which is why in effect the nuclear arms race is already underway," former U.N. Ambassador and Fox News contributor John Bolton said, adding that Iran and other nations have used civilian nuclear energy programs as cover for covert enrichment programs. 

You've given Iran the path they've been seeking ?  Huh ?  Because, it is so much easier to develop nuclear weapons whilst under international monitoring and scrutiny, than to do so under a covert programme ?

"Every Sunni Arab nation is going to see [a nuclear Iran] as an inevitable outcome," Republican presidential candidate and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said. "The worst possible outcome of the deal would be to create a nuclear arms race in the Mideast where Sunni Arabs feel threatened." 

Why would they see that, unless they were getting their information from Fox News & Bibi ?  I certainly hope they have far better sources of intellligence than that.  A nuclear arms-race is the inevitable outcome of no deal, as Iran clearly sees a nuclear weapon as the only effective deterrent against an attack by the US and/or Israel (and the desire in the West for 'regime-change' in Tehran, at any cost, with or without the nuclear issue, is real and clear), as neither the US nor Israel is willing currently to wage an actual ground-war against Iran to prevent it obtaining a weapon, and as the completely hypothetical 'better deal' imagined by the Republicans & Likudniks seems to require the total capitulation of Iran to Western interests.  Short of the West being willing to threaten Tehran with an actual nuclear assault, there is nothing, no amount of bombings, no amount of sanctions that will ever bring that about, without massive expenditure and loss of lives by the West.

Your choices are as they ever were: war, nuclear war, or an attempt at least at diplomacy.  Here's hoping that the grownups retain control of the White House for the next couple of electoral cycles.


* Is there such a thing as a rhetorical lie ?

What Happened to the Dinosaurs, Daddy ?

America needs to replace a rotting arsenal of nuclear weapons and counteract an increasingly boisterous Russia, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said Tuesday. For these reasons, it must consider the long-taboo prospect of building new nukes.

“Can we have a national conversation about building new nuclear weapons?” Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, said in remarks at the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C. “That’s something we haven’t been able to even have a conversation about for a while, but I think we’re going to have to.”

“Russia obviously retains the right if needed to deploy its nuclear weapons anywhere on its national territory, including on the Crimean Peninsula,” Mikhail Ulyanov, head of the Russian Department for Non-Proliferation and Arms Control, said in early June.Just last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced his plans to boost the former Soviet power’s nuclear arsenal with 40 new missiles. The plan follows a string of provocative comments from top Russian officials who consider a nuclear weapon the most effective method of countering what they consider NATO’s provocative actions in Eastern Europe.

Thornberry said Tuesday this is more than enough justification for considering a new supply of offensive nukes.

None of this had to happen.  We had peace.  We had reason for hope.  We also had idiotic Russophobic politicians who treated Russia like shit after the end of the last cold war, and helped enable the rise of Putin.  Five decades somehow survived without destroying the world, and, having learned nothing from history, we immediately started sowing the seeds of the next war.  Sigh.

No en mi patio trasero

Well, it would be...

...irresponsible...

...not to speculate.

So many layers of stupid here, I'm not going to even bother.  Not.  Gonna.  Happen.  But it did give me an excuse to play with a blast simulator, so thanks Express !

Tom Cotton's Four Day War against Iran

So, if I'm understanding this right, when our new Ronald ReaganSenator Tom Cotton talks about the military alternative to Obama's treacherous deal with Iran as involving 'several days of air and naval bombing' and Ted Cruz says that 'a military action to take out the nuclear facilities would be a couple of days or...a week', the argument is that we are talking here not about ending Iran's nuclear programme or preventing Iran from developing a bomb, but about 'degrading' Iran's ability to make a bomb, and delaying it by maybe a year or two.

While, meanwhile, a primary criticism of the evil no-good deal that Obama cooked up with Iran, is that it would only delay Iran's breakout time to make a bomb by a mere thirteen years.

So, to gain a negative-eleven year delay in Iran acquiring nuclear weapons, the United States should bomb the shit out of them, causing massive destruction, and probably killing many innocent civilians, inviting a much greater military retaliation than Iraq could muster in 1998, further inflaming the region, while expending insanely expensive military resources, destroying any possibility for the foreseeable future of rapprochement with Iran, and most likely causing the Iranian citizens to unite against the United States and rally in favour of acquiring a nuclear deterrent, and spurring the 'regime' to hasten its development of a nuclear weapon as quickly as possible.

Well, then of course.  We should BOMB THEM NOW !

The Artificial Islands of Love

What is it about totalitarian dictatorships that produces such hilarious rhetoric ?

South China Sea islands plan unveiled

Updated: 2015-04-10 03:20

By LI XIAOKUN(China Daily)

United States accused of ignoring building work by other nations on China's islands

China on Thursday unveiled details of its plan for building and maintenance projects on some of its islands in the South China Sea, saying it aims mainly to provide a civilian service that will benefit other countries.

The details were announced by the Foreign Ministry, which also accused Washington of adopting double standards on the issue by ignoring building work by other countries on islands owned by China.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a regular news briefing, "We are setting up shelters, aids for navigation, search and rescue as well as marine meteorological forecasting services, fishery services and other administrative services.

"These will provide necessary services to China, neighboring countries and individual vessels sailing in the South China Sea."

But of course, you're building artificial islands out of open sea far far far from your own coastline, because of the benefit you can provide to the other (much) nearer countries in the vicinity.  It all makes sense now.  What were we worrying about ?  Here we were thinking it was a land-grab based upon your usual maximalist territorial claims to any inch of land or water on which a Chinese citizen ever walked...er swam ?...sailed ?...But all along, it turns out the whole thing was a gift to your neighbours.  That totally makes sense.  You can stop worrying now Vietnam.  No problem at all Philippines.  And Taiwan, well when the PRC invades you and forces you under their rule, then all of this will be yours too !  Assuming they don't drop a neutron-bomb on you first.  Maybe you should just surrender now...

Nothing to worry about...at all...

A US 'Nuclear Umbrella' for Saudi Arabia ?

From the LA Times:

Obama administration officials are promising a major strengthening of U.S. defense commitments to Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf allies, possibly including a nuclear commitment to their security, in an intensifying effort to win their support for the proposed nuclear deal with Iran.

Officials say they hope to reassure nervous gulf Arab states by providing more military aid and training to their defense forces, and by making more explicit commitments to help them repel external attacks.

The administration is studying whether to make any nuclear assurances, though officials emphasize no decision has been made.

...

One challenge for the White House is whether it can expand a defense relationship that already is enormous.

...

It's also not clear that U.S. nuclear security commitments would be useful or welcomed by the gulf states.

The administration would have a hard time trying to get Congress, which has been skeptical about the U.S.-Saudi relationship, to enact a treaty that put a U.S. nuclear "umbrella" over Arab Sunni nations, as the United States has over Japan and South Korea.

Such agreements aim to deter nuclear attack by warning foes that the United States would retaliate with overwhelming force if an ally is attacked with a nuclear weapon.

...

Another possible gesture would be to declare the gulf states "major non-NATO allies," said Thomas Lippman, a Saudi specialist at the nonpartisan Middle East Institute in Washington. The designation, applied to close allies like Japan, Australia and Israel, provides special help in buying weapons and obtaining U.S. weapons.

This, if true, is insane.  Though I do wonder about the article's provenance.  Sure are a lot of unspecified 'officials' mentioned in the article.  And it doesn't appear to actually be a new story at that.  Seems it was being reported in the Israeli media over a month ago:

http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Analysis-US-Sunni-states-talk-about-regional-nuclear-umbrella-393131

http://www.haaretz.com/news/1.645573

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/192178

From the latter two, it seems their source was an Arabic paper, al-Hayat.  Huh.


I want to be sceptical.  But this is Barack Obama & John Kerry we're talking about.  Given the completely ham-handed way they've handled Ukraine...I think I could believe it.  And so what happens next ?  Does Russia do a deal with Iran to promise them their own 'nuclear umbrella' ?  What could possibly go wrong with drawing the battlelines of a new Cold War between the West and Russia across the heart of the Middle East and the Sunni/Shia divide ?  Have we learned nothing in the hundred years since, from the Great War of 1914-18 ?

Insane.

That 'mushroom cloud somewhere near Tehran'

So I guess this...'article' from Politico 'clarifies' that quote I'd heard from Senator Mark Kirk.

Sen. Mark Kirk blasted the nuclear deal with Iran on Thursday, saying the Obama administration’s diplomacy was worse than Britain’s attempts to appease Nazi Germany and predicting Israel would soon be pulled into a war with Iran.

The Illinois Republican trashed a deal struck by global powers with Tehran, concluding in a phone interview “that Neville Chamberlain got a lot of more out of Hitler than Wendy Sherman got out of Iran,” a reference to a top State Department negotiator on the deal.

But Kirk wasn’t done, forecasting that lifting any more sanctions on Iran “dooms the Middle East to yet another war,” one that Israel will have to clean up, perhaps in a nuclear fashion.

“We should be a reviewing presence to see how this unfolds,” Kirk said of Congress’ role, adding: “Which we all know is going to end with a mushroom cloud somewhere near Tehran.”

I'd assumed that it most likely referred to the only possible US (or Israeli) military alternative to 'the Bad Deal' (disregarding fictional magical 'Good' deals whereby the Iranians give us everything we might possibly desire for nothing in return), short of total invasion and occupation of Iran, i.e. requiring tactical nuclear strikes on Iran's heavily hardened & bunkered nuclear facilities.   Do we really think that the BushCheney administration would have held back in their war against 'The Axis of Evil' if a 'Daisy-Cutter' would do it, let alone lesser ordnance ?  That the Israelis held back under the present Netanyahu government because of...what...this absurd idea that the Americans would actually shoot down IDF jets ?  Because of fears about flight-times....under an...existential threat ?  And under the previous Sharon government and earlier Netanyahu government because...something ?

If there were truly a military solution to Iran's nuclear programme short of actual nuclear war and/or all-out invasion and occupation, I suspect a lot of even the most lefty-of-lefty Western politicians would welcome it (not that they'd admit it, granted) if Israel took out Iran's nuclear facilities as it did Iraq's back in the eighties.  But that ain't gonna happen.  Not even when President Ted Cruz takes office...

But, the 'article'...I'm forgetting..,

Kirk’s office called to clarify that Kirk was referring to a nuclear test in Iran.

Yah, that's what Kirk meant: an above-ground nuclear test by Iran near the largest and most important city in Iran.  That totally makes sense...

Well, the 'Good Deal' is a joke, the Republicans will do their damndest to torpedo any efforts of any kind made by the Marxist Kenyan Anti-Christ Obama, and there's no way we'll see a non-nuclear military solution anytime soon.

So I guess it's mushroom clouds somewhere near Tehran sometime soon...Anyone care to guess which other cities might follow ?

Obama on the Israeli Elections and the Deal, Good/Bad/Otherwise with Iran

How Liberals Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Iranian Bomb

So it turns out the 'western Left' is totally cool with the idea of Iran having a nuclear arsenal, the possession of which actual weapons (as opposed to current theoretical capability) would likely as Lumish rightly points out lead to a new arms-race in the region.  And that the Obama administration is actively working to enable an Iranian 'Jihadi Bomb'.  Who knew ?  And why ?  Because of 'white liberal guilt'.  Sorry about that whole Colonialism thing y'all.  Lollipop make it better ?  No ?  Well how about some thermonuclear weapons ?  Here, have some of ours why don't you -- how about these Trident missiles -- Britain doesn't need them anymore according to the SNP.  There, all better now ?  But don't go doing anything naughty with those warheads now, promise !  Fascinating read from the artist formerly known as Karmafish.