Well, nobody can force the Iranians to do anything they don’t agree to. They can comply and come up with reputable evidence, or they can look for loopholes or just outright refuse, and we are then free to choose whatever reaction we would like.
A treaty is just a treaty. It can be broken by either party at any time. It’s not like it resets the laws of physics or anything.
Not that it matters to this agreement, but Terr is 100% wrong on contract law. It’s called the duty of good faith and fair dealing and it is implied in all U.S. contracts.
I’ve been following this thread to see if the opponents to the deal come up with a convincing argument against. So far, I don’t see it.
Terr, let’s say you’re right, and the deal does not allow inspectors into the military facility in question. I agree that is less than ideal. But from there… How does “no deal, sanctions end, no inspections anywhere, diplomatic egg on our face, Iranian research continues” seem like a less likely scenario for an Iranian bomb than “deal, sanctions end, inspections at most facilities, dis-assembly of some existing infrastructure/stockpiles” ? It seems to me you are making Perfect the enemy of Good, and Perfect isn’t anywhere in the cards to begin with.
Most of the objections I am seeing do not specify any realistic alternative to giving this a try, save for “War!”, which is completely insane IMO. Even if you want war, it is always an option later on, if this agreement fails. I think even **adaher **has acknowledged that from where we stand in reality right now, agreeing to the deal is the right way to move forward.
People, people. Missing from this discussion is that Parchin DOESN’T MATTER. At worst the IAEA finds out that some undisclosed nuclear weapons work was done over a decade ago. At best they find out nothing illicit was ever done there. Under any “normal” deal, no inspections would be allowed at all because letting inspectors into a top-secret military facility is a humiliating capitulation to Iran. It’s a testament to the IAEA that they got any kind of inspection at all. Even the oft-cited Olli Heinonen wonders why the IAEA was so fixated on inspecting this facility.
This is not a treaty.
If you have an agreement where certain things are not required, then when those things are not done, that does not constitute “breaking” the agreement.
You keep treating this as though the IAEA has to have definitive, smoking gun proof that Iran violated the agreement, probably obtained in a predetermined way, in order for the P5+1 to be allowed to do anything about it.
Don’t you realize, even from your own point of view that Iran is terrible and will be cheating constantly, how short-sighted this argument is? You ought to want an agreement that defaults to punishing Iran for not being forthcoming enough. If you set aside the Parchin inspection protocol and look at snapback, this agreement achieves that. The U.S. doesn’t need smoking gun proof to reinstitute sanctions on Iran, and you should be happy about that.
In any case, ultimately what constitutes a violation of the agreement leading to sanctions and possibly war is really only up to one party to decide. That party isn’t the IAEA. It’s the U.S. If the U.S., under this or future presidents, feels that Iran is playing games, the U.S. through its position on the UNSC can basically unilaterally restore the all the sanctions that are being lifted because of this agreement. Plus the U.S., as a superpower, can pretty much bomb Iran any time it wants to - though it would be stupid to do that before Iran does something to provoke it.
I still have no idea what you and your friends believe is a realistically obtainable and better deal.
War.
President Obama and Secretary Kerry keep insisting that War is the only alternative.
Somewhere in Iran, one of the warmongering opponents of the deal…one of* their* warmongering opponents of the deal, that is… is giving the proponents and negotiators a load of shit for this provision, reminding them that the next president might be Trump!
“Look at the position you peaceniks have put us in” they are yelling in Farsi.
And so it goes. Again.
That was kinda my point. Iranian cheating will be responded to by “Give the agreement a chance! What is the alternative? We should hold more talks about this before taking any action!”
While the agreement between the IAEA and Iran isn’t cheating, per se, it is also less than what the President told us this agreement would be and frankly I think he probably had a few choice curse words in private over it when he was informed.
Absolute bullsh*t. There is no way to “snap back sanctions” over something that you cannot point to agreements and say “that’s a violation of this or that”.
According to your logic, there is no need for agreements at all. US just tells Iran what to do and arbitrarily decides whether Iran follows its diktats fast enough. Right?
The agreement does make snapback easy, kudos to Kerry for getting that. But now it becomes more clear why Iran agreed to it: because Iran knows that Russia and China at the very least won’t keep their end, and our European allies might not either. They’ve already invested too much to pull back now. They’d take huge losses.
Do you even know what’s in the agreement? I mean, this thread has gone on for pages and pages, and you don’t seem to understand the most elementary part of the agreement on this point?
I posted its text - according to ABC News. Can you point out where in the agreement is there anything about IAEA inspectors’ physical presence in Parchin, or wearable cameras, or “line of sight” monitoring, or anything like that?
Iran isn’t the Borg, you know. Not a discrete entity, with but a single purpose and thought. There are people in Iran who would very much prefer to see this work. To stop sinking metric buttloads of money into a largely useless weapon, and then the prospect of sinking much more making an effective weapon out of it. If they don’t get killed first.
There are lots of good and sensible reasons for the Iranian people to like this agreement, without conjuring dark and malefic motivations.
The various Iranian people don’t run things. Ayatollah Khamanei does.
Death to America! Wipe Israel off the map!
No need to conjure anything.
Oh, well the piece of paper says so, I guess that ends the debate.
And in other news, Belgium was never invaded.
No, I’m talking about how the U.S. can unilaterally reimpose UN sanctions. You seem utterly unaware how this works.
Hey, you never answered my question as to whether you understood “breakout.” I’m not trying to embarrass you or anything, but you had posted a few things which made it seem like you didn’t quite get it. Do you know what breakout is and how to describe it?