I can field that one:
Any source that is in favor of the agreement is a puppet of the Obama administration.
Are you suuuuuure? Is that your… FINAL ANSWER?
Seems that way. I tend to operate under the assumption that the IAEA would do their due diligence and not agree to rules for inspections that were redundant, but hey, a guy who left IAEA six years ago is clearly the only credible source here.
And you realize that the first line of defense against uranium enrichment at covert sites is not inspecting covert sites, but subjecting the uranium mining process under 24/7 monitoring for the next 25 years?
Where are these covert sites going to get the nuclear fuel? You expect many, many tons of ore to be enriched to HEU using the equivalent of Saddam’s alleged mobile BW laboratories?
I’d still like to know your guess about which former IAEA official said that thing about complete sanitization.
Are you giving up on claiming that “anytime, anywhere” can possibly mean 70+ days delay?
Same one. Note: “difficult”. Not “impossible”. Exactly as the other guy said. Maybe can be discovered when inspected “often”. Which will not happen with the process I described.
Have you given up on answering anyone’s questions, or do you really think that because the delay doesn’t meet your definition of “anytime, anywhere” means the whole deal is shot?
Anytime, anywhere was not promised by the Administration, as Factcheck concluded. ETA: And these do appear to be the most intrusive nuclear inspections anywhere in the world.
So you think the IAEA is going to be fooled by going into places that have fresh coat of paint, and they’ll just say, “Guess everything is fine here!”
So which is it – the IAEA is made up of geniuses like Olli, or Inspector Clouseau types who are utterly incapable of detecting deception? Would you be happy if Mr. Heinonen led the inspection teams? Seems fine to me. Even if he does seem to want to mislead people by saying that a fresh coat of paint covers everything.
And again, control of the nuclear fuel supply is the main pathway to negate the possibility of covert labs. If we can control the fuel, there’s no fuel to divert to covert labs. And you would have to divert tons and tons and tons and tons of ore to create a bomb.
What else can they say?
“They are hiding something!”
“What exactly?”
“We don’t know.”
“What’s your evidence?”
“Well, they redecorated and repainted!”
Yeah, I am sure “snapback sanctions” will immediately follow. Not.
“Durrrr… we thought the Iranians just made a trip to Ikea to redecorate… durr, no way they could be hiding anything… durrr, they probably just didn’t want us to visit for two months because the Ektraaap office furniture, the Snurkgaaard potted plants, and the Olli dinette set hadn’t arrived yet… durrr…”
“Do you have proof?”
OMG – I totally forgot about Iran’s Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendment protections! Curses!
ETA: By the way, this “burden of proof” thing is a weird tangent to get on, because nobody seems to have evidence right now of an active nuclear weapons program in Iran. I guess we shouldn’t have imposed all those sanctions if we didn’t have proof that they were building a nuclear weapon, huh?
I can just repeat what I said before: if you think that with no proof of wrongdoing there will be any “snapping back” of sanctions, you’re so far away from reality that there really is no talking to you.
You think the President of the United States – whether it is Hillary, Obama, The Donald, Jeb, or whomever else you wish to name – is going to wait for smoking gun proof of a nuclear weapons program before re-instituting sanctions?
Once more: the United States and the United Nations instituted sanctions on Iran WITHOUT proof of any active nuclear weapons program. How is that not clear?
Yes. Definitely re-decorating would not be considered proof, smoking-gun or not.
Right now we don’t even have redecorating-level proof. And yet the P5+1 all agreed on sanctions. How is that possible? And yet, it is.
And remember that in this deal, the six negotiating partners don’t have to unanimously agree to impose sanctions, as they did before. It only takes one to re-institute them. So why would the burden of proof be higher for snapback than it was to institute the sanctions in the first place?
Answer: it isn’t. This is just the linguine tactic of throwing a bunch of arguments and scenarios against a wall and hoping that something sticks.
Because now it was “inspected”. And no proof was found. And you know this, but are playing games.
And no, US will not go through the process of snapback, that includes vetoing a UNSC resolution, because of Iranians redecorating, without proof. If you think US will, you live in fantasy land.
Your whole argument hinges on Iran having mastered the art of building a nuclear weapon in secret, using procedures that the P5+1 countries either aren’t aware of or are choosing to ignore, all while the US acts completely contrary to the past several decades of sanctioning anyone who looks at us funny; are you seriously saying your view is more grounded in reality than ours?
How about this: if this plan goes through and Iran builds a nuke before 2030, I owe you a coke.
The truly fantastical thing is asserting – or at least implying – that Congress would not re-impose sanctions based on the redecorating, thus probably causing Iran to pull out of the agreement, thus resulting in snapback.
For crying out loud, Congress is probably going to be just a few votes shy of a veto-proof majority to tank the whole deal based on the notion of “We want a better deal! And a unicorn!” And you think that Iranian deception – whether it is covering up something real or something imagined – is going to go unnoticed?
You’re positing that the deep, ingrained suspicion of Iran simply isn’t going to be present anymore in a few years. The unreasonableness of that idea is obvious.
US sanctions alone don’t do much. We don’t trade much with Iran. The “snapback” supposedly activates UN sanctions. That will not happen.
You think Iran is going to ignore US sanctions if they were reimposed? Are you joking?
It has nothing to do with how much US unilateral economic sanctions would hurt Iran. It has everything to do with the Supreme Leader and the hardliners having plenty of fodder to portray the US as untrustworthy, turning its back on the deal, double-dealing, etc. Congress imposing sanctions sinks the deal, today or in the future. Then Iran gets pissed and trashes the deal. Then snapback happens. It’s so obvious how this would play out!
If you don’t think that Congress imposing sanctions on Iran would sink the deal, then why wouldn’t Obama sign the bill that Congress is likely to pass in September to keep sanctions in place?