Source: Iran deal appears imminent

WASHINGTON – The problem for the Obama administration has been, “Iran won’t take ‘yes’ for an answer,” a Capitol Hill source told WND.

But that is expected to change very soon.

Sources tell WND the Obama administration is expected to announce a deal with Iran on its nuclear program as soon as Monday evening, following days of reports in the media that an agreement is imminent.

Critics say the reason Iran has refused to take yes for an answer is that the Obama administration has conceded on virtually every key demand, so the Iranians have just kept demanding more.

“The Iranians clearly are jerking our chain,” said Iran expert Clare Lopez, after hearing what the sources had told WND.

Lopez, the vice president for research and analysis at the Center for Security Policy, told WND, “With deadline after deadline for an agreement having been missed, it seems that the Iranians are now just going for broke.”

Lopez added, “They probably have teams back in Tehran, sitting up nights, trying to think of what else to demand that they haven’t already received: They’ve got enrichment; centrifuges; get to keep their enriched stockpiles and the Arak nuclear reactor to make some more (with plutonium); don’t have to explain past illicit weapons work; can refuse inspectors access to virtually any place they choose; are allowed to continue their secret nuclear weapons and ballistic missile cooperation with North Korea (and their ICBMs that can reach Europe and the U.S. aren’t even on the table for discussion); have been faced with zero demands for the release of the four American hostages they’re holding; and the West is going to grant them tens of billions of dollars worth of unfrozen funds and sanctions relief plus provide all kinds of technical assistance for their ‘peaceful’ nuclear program.”

Then Lopez asked, “What’s left but the kitchen sink?”

The concessions she listed have been widely reported in various media outlets.

The U.S. reportedly has already made major concessions on these items:

• Inspections

• Uranium

• Plutonium

• Sanctions

• Weaponization

• Missile program

• Terror

• Hostages

• Israel

The only reported sticking points to reaching a deal:

• Arms embargo

• Terminology

Inspections

When President Obama announced in April that a framework deal had been reached, he said Iran had agreed to “the most robust and intrusive inspections and transparency regime ever negotiated for any nuclear program in history.” Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said the deal would permit “anytime, anywhere inspections of any and every Iranian facility.’

Iran immediately denied that was true. It also declared military facilities and “non-declared” nuclear sites as off limits to inspectors.

In response, the administration reportedly proposed something called “managed access” instead of “anywhere, anytime” access.

The U.S. also has reportedly dropped demands to inspect non-declared nuclear sites and military facilities.

But even that was too much for Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, who rejected the terms as insufficient.

Nonetheless, the U.S. is reportedly now willing to let International Atomic Energy Agency, or IEAE, limit itself to token inspections of just a few nuclear sites and to monitor suspected sites with intelligence means, a method that proved insufficient in preventing North Korea from obtaining nuclear weapons.

Uranium

The U.S. has gone from a position of refusing to allow Iran to enrich any uranium to allowing it enrich some, and then, most recently allowing Iran to operate 6,000 uranium centrifuges.

Obama admitted that would not prevent Iran from acquiring enough enriched uranium to build bombs, but merely slow it down for a decade, or so.

Iran reportedly also will not have to surrender its current stockpile of uranium.

Plutonium

Iran will keep all of its nuclear infrastructure, and the U.S. has apparently dropped its long-standing demand that Iran stop construction of the Arak heavy-water reactor, which will be able to produce plutonium.

Sanctions

The U.S. had initially demanded that Iran comply with the terms of any deal before economic sanctions would be lifted, but seems to have backtracked on that. Iran has demanded all sanctions be lifted upon the signing of a deal.

The Obama administration has reportedly agreed to a $150-billion “signing bonus,” frozen Iranian money that would be freed up and given to Iran upon the signing of a deal.

Critics say Iran would immediately use that money to speed up its nuclear program and financing of terrorism.

Weaponization

Secretary of State John Kerry indicated on April 16 the West would drop demands that Iran reveal what work it has already done on its efforts to develop nuclear weapons.

He said that was because “we are not fixated on Iran specifically accounting for what they did at one point in time or another. We know what they did,” and that, “We have absolute knowledge with respect to the certain military activities they were engaged in.”

Critics point to a “poor track record of U.S. intelligence in monitoring and detecting WMD programs in Iraq, Iran, North Korea and other states.”

Missile program

Rolling back Iran’s efforts to develop an intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of hitting the United States is not even on the table. The U.S. has settled on trying to keep in place an embargo on missile technology to Iran.

Terror

Stopping or reducing Iran’s role as the world’s leading state sponsor of terror is also not on the table.

Hostages

Also not under discussion, the release of four American hostages held by Iran: Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian; Iranian-American Christian pastor Saeed Abedini; former U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati; and former FBI agent Robert Levinson. Rezaian, Abedini and Hekmati have been charged with espionage.

Israel

Ending Iran’s persistent threats to destroy Israel is also not on the table.

Now that the U.S. reportedly has agreed to all of Iran’s key demands, Iran is apparently holding out for more. Resolution of two more demands may be the only things holding up a deal.

Arms embargo

Iran wants an immediate lifting of a 2006 U.N. arms embargo. Not only would that allow Russia and China to sell sophisticated weapons to Iran, it would allow Iran to export with impunity to its terrorist clients such as Hezbollah and Hamas.

Iran also wants the embargo on missile technology lifted.

Terminology

Iran doesn’t want any deal to refer to its nuclear program as “illegal.”

Lopez was scathing in her appraisal of reported progress toward a deal.

“So now, some bright young staffer over there has no doubt earned his annual bonus by proposing that Iran should demand the lifting of all U.N. arms embargoes – which would mean that Iran henceforth could do openly and with the full approval of the international community behind it what previously, at least nominally, was banned: Import the most modern weaponry available on the market today for the purpose of export to its terrorist proxies like Hamas, Hezbollah, the Taliban and all its Iraqi Shiite terror militias. Think of what this might mean for the genocidal Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, or the U.S. Navy inside the Persian Gulf, or the Hezbollah network operating all over the Western Hemisphere.”

She continued, “And while they were at it, the Iranians decided they didn’t much like the tone we’ve been using to describe their prior illicit nuclear weapons work. So, they decided to demand we clean up that language so that it doesn’t sound so ‘illicit’ anymore. In other words, all prior violations of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (to which Iran was, is, and remains a signatory) would simply be air-brushed out of the picture.”

Lopez summed up, “This is sheer insanity – and should a deal with any of these concessions included eventually be reached, it will be up to Congress as the last line of defense for American national security to reject such a deal.”

from PropagandaGuard https://propagandaguard.wordpress.com/2015/07/13/source-iran-deal-appears-imminent/

from WordPress https://toddmsiebert.wordpress.com/2015/07/13/source-iran-deal-appears-imminent/