War Mongers Cry About Iran-US Nuke Deal. Is It A New Hope For Middle East Peace?

It would seem that a final deal won’t be ready until later this year, when Iran is able to verify that it has adhered to the US’s list of requirements. However, the framework agreement announced in Lausanne, Switzerland on Thursday between Iran, the US and some miscellaneous nations is sending ripples around the world. It offers the hope of peace, at long last, between the US, the Middle East, and one of the US’s many “enemies”… but not everyone is appeased.  There are those who seem to think that a continued stalemate and endless sanctions, or possibly even yet another drawn-out war, is the better path.

President of the National Iranian American Council, Trita Parsi, wrote in an op-ed at The National Interest on Friday morning, that “Peace won. War lost. It’s as simple as that.”

“Make no mistake,” Parsie continued, “the framework agreement that was announced yesterday is nothing short of historic. A cycle of escalation has been broken – for the first time, Iran’s nuclear program will roll back, as will the sanctions Iran has been subjected too.”

As regular Iranians were apparently celebrating in the streets, and Obama, John Kerry, and the foreign ministers of the other nations were receiving widespread praise for their diplomatic effort (one wonders if they really deserved that much credit, considering the fact that Iran ought not have been sanctioned for dethroning the Shah in the first place… But I guess it’s at least acceptable that America has at least come to accept that it was wrong… by blaming the sanctions on Iran’s nuclear program instead) war-hawks moved swiftly and made public their petty objections to the deal.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was the first to strike, stating that he continues to be “vehemently opposed” to any deal with Iran, in a phone call with Obama following the announcement of the agreement. Basically the US could make an agreement with Iran to allow Israel to take over half of it, and Netanyahu would still take issue.

“This deal would legitimize Iran’s nuclear program, bolster Iran’s economy and increase Iran’s aggression and terror throughout the Middle East and beyond,” Netanyahu said later in a statement. “It would increase the risks of nuclear proliferation in the region and the risks of a horrific war.” Notably, Israel (though it remains secret) is the only country in the Middle East likely to have a nuclear weapons arsenal; why else go through such lengths to detain and silence an Israeli whistle-blower who had allegedly worked on the program himself? I suppose being the only person who can obliterate any potential rivals is a tempting proposition to any war-monger. Mutually Assured Destruction would be SO annoying after all. Not that Iran is even working on nukes at the moment, but paranoia comes naturally to some people.

Meanwhile, just a short time after the agreement was signed, the Republican Senator who chairs the Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Corker of Tennessee, said that the panel will vote on a measure he had proposed. It would stipulate that congressional approval is required for any deal with Iran over its nuclear program. An obvious means of sabotaging the diplomatic effort, Corker stated that he would call for a vote as soon as members returned from Easter recess.

Known as the ‘The Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015,’ the legislation would require any final agreement with Iran to be submitted to Congress for a 60-day review period before Congressional-mandated sanctions on Iran could be waived or suspended by the president.

Corker’s legislation has support from his Republican colleagues, and also several hawkish Democrats, including: Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Sen. Joe Donnelly (D- Indiana), Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Col.), Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY). All this “infighting” almost makes me feel like there’s a difference between money-grubber A and bribed politician B…. Almost.

While foreign policy experts from around the world praised the deal, with many expressing surprise by just how much Iran was willing to offer in exchange for sanctions relief and an end to economic isolation, House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) called the deal (that would provide a reduction of Iran’s nuclear capacity and strict monitoring of its atomic activities) an “alarming” development”. I doubt he found a deal that would essentially tie Iran’s hands alarming. What he’s really alarmed by is the fact that he won’t get to wage war on Iran…. Not yet anyway. Not until “slam-dunk” secret CIA files prove that Iran has a billion invisi-nukes… Far-fetched?

According to Scott Ritter, a former U.S. Marine and UN weapons inspector, the predictable opposition to the deal with Tehran is coming from the very same people who led the U.S. people into war with Iraq in 2003. “The high-profile criticism coming from Israel and Congressional Republicans,” Ritter writes, “channel the most extreme examples of the last weapons of mass destruction (WMD) witch-hunt — involving Iraq — which culminated in a war that killed thousands, cost trillions, and destabilized and further radicalized a region of the world essential to international prosperity. Armed with the knowledge that the case against Iraq’s WMD was, at best illusory and, at worst, a complete fabrication, Americans should be hesitant about accepting at face value claims of Iranian nuclear malfeasance that are unsustained by fact and are at odds with history.”

“When it comes to Iran and its nuclear program, the world would do well to take a different path than that chosen for Iraq, and let inspections, not bombs, do the work of disarmament,” concludes Ritter.

And for director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, Phyllis Bennis, the agreement reached this week should be seen as a “huge victory for diplomacy over war.”

Offering her views on Foreign Policy In Focus, Bennis explained that it’s obvious that Tehran had made far larger concessions than the US and its allies. She writes:

Tehran accepted that U.S. and EU sanctions will not be lifted until after the UN’s watchdog agency verifies that Iran has fully implemented its new nuclear obligations — which could be years down the line. It agreed to severe cuts in its nuclear infrastructure, including the reduction of its current 19,000 centrifuges for enriching uranium to just over 6,000.

Tehran also consented to rebuild its heavy water reactor at Arak so that it will have no reprocessing capacity and thus cannot produce plutonium. Its spent fuel will be exported. The Fordow nuclear plant, moreover, will be turned into a technology research center without fissile material. And crucially, the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency will be allowed to conduct unannounced inspections.

In return, the United States and its partners — the UK, France, Germany, Russia, and China — agreed that the UN resolution imposing international sanctions on Iran would be replaced by a new resolution that would end those sanctions but maintain some restrictions.

Bennis was not the only person who believed that what was achieved in Switzerland was practically impossible. “I’m wildly impressed by it,” a former member of the UN Panel of Experts on Iran, Jacqueline Shire, told Middle East Eye. “This is Iran saying it is opening the doors and lifting its hood, letting people look inside. But then Iran gets to walk away with dignity intact because they keep an enrichment program, 6,000 centrifuges is nothing to sneeze at.”

Bennis hopes that the “partisan posturing of right-wing militarists and neoconservative ideologues” will be ignored. A peaceful and stable Middle East might hopefully be allowed to take root… If a final deal is reached, that is, and I’m personally uncertain if all this wouldn’t somehow end up in the favor of the neocons anyway.

She writes that the stage would be set “for an entirely new set of diplomatic relationships and alliances in the Middle East.” It would take a lot more than one agreement to foster better relations between such ruthless rivals, particularly considering the fact that the US has and always will act only for its own “benefit”(or at least the benefit of its politicians) but….

One can hope.

Original source: http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/04/03/hawks-fume-world-celebrates-victory-diplomacy-over-war