{"id":1572,"date":"2015-07-21T17:53:22","date_gmt":"2015-07-21T22:53:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=1572"},"modified":"2015-07-21T17:53:22","modified_gmt":"2015-07-21T22:53:22","slug":"the-iran-deal-roundup-ctd-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2015\/07\/21\/the-iran-deal-roundup-ctd-15\/","title":{"rendered":"The Iran Deal Roundup, Ctd"},"content":{"rendered":"

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is not entirely happy with the nuclear deal<\/a>, reports <\/a>AL Monitor<\/b><\/i>‘s Arash Karami in an interview with the IRGC’s head, Mohammad\u00a0Ali Jafari:<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, as a military official, what is more important than anything else \u2026 is the protection and promotion of Iran\u2019s defensive abilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the agreement that the Security Council\u00a0voted on, Jafari said, \u201cSome points included in the draft [are] clearly contrary to and a violation of the red lines of the Islamic Republic of Iran, specifically of Iran\u2019s arms capabilities and will never be accepted by us.\u201d He continued, \u201cAny resolution that contradicts our country\u2019s red lines, there is no validity, and we are hopeful that the [UN Security Council]\u00a0does not waste its\u00a0time to pass a draft like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jafari did not say that how he or the IRGC would oppose the aspects of the nuclear deal that he objects to.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While the IRGC does not have a formal responsibility to sign or repudiate the deal, they remain a major force<\/a> in Iranian political life and could scuttle the agreement.<\/p>\n

In Israel, a political opponent of current Prime Minister Netanyahu, former Labor Party Minister Ephraim Sneh, happens to agree with his opponent that this is a bad deal, in another AL Monitor<\/b><\/i> interview:<\/p>\n

It is full of holes<\/a>. First of all, the inspection protocols are very problematic, because they give the Iranians 24 days to prepare. That\u2019s enough time to hide and conceal what they have been doing. After all, they are masters of deception. They\u2019ve spent years deceiving the entire world, so they don\u2019t need more than 24 hours to hide any accumulated evidence. In other words, the inspections aren\u2019t real inspections.<\/p>\n

Second, the nuclear project was not dismantled. It was put on hold. It was frozen, and anything frozen can be unfrozen. The Iranians don\u2019t see their strategy in terms of winning the next elections. They look at it in generational and historical terms. They consider domination of the region and of the entire world for that matter as a historic objective, rather than some concrete objective in the here and now. In that sense, another 10\u00a0or 15\u00a0years is not a lot of time.<\/p>\n

The third thing is that the clause regarding the restoration of punitive measures will become impractical in the new reality that will emerge the moment sanctions are lifted. Why? Because who will be the first people to go running to Tehran to do business there? Large corporations<\/a>. Once they have contractual ties with the Revolutionary Guards or some proxy for the Revolutionary Guards, their government will not take any steps against Iran, because doing so would involve money and jobs. It would involve economic interests. That is why that whole argument is untrustworthy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Masters of deception, eh?\u00a0 This argument has the ring of speciousness about it, no doubt due to the hyperbolic rhetoric.\u00a0 They may be devious, but the West has decades of monitoring experience – and a very bloody history of our own.<\/p>\n

The second argument has a similar rhetorical problem – dominate the world?\u00a0 Secondly, he ignores the very important fact that knowledge is dependent on the scientists.\u00a0 A frozen nuclear project will, in fact, and if you’ll pardon the pun, decay<\/em> as the scientists stop working on it and go on to other things, retire, and die.\u00a0 Even the physical infrastructure will decay.\u00a0 There is more to unfreezing a high-tech project than simply snapping your fingers.<\/p>\n

The third argument is also dubious, although somewhat less so.\u00a0 But I do feel that Iran will be protectionist, so the number of large corporations with large investments will initially be close to zero; as time passes, this will become less true, but we’ll have gained experience with the Iranians, and they with us.\u00a0 I think we can hope as the two sides settle into the agreement, they will each appreciate the positives of a peaceful relationship, and the negatives of slinging nuclear explosives at each other.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, Sneh knows a lot more about his corner of the world than do I.<\/p>\n

Longtime Lebanese Druze<\/a> leader Walid Jumblatt has this to say, as reported <\/a>by the Daily Star of Lebanon<\/b><\/i>:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe nuclear deal between Iran and world powers is the result of the invasion and occupation of Iraq… and the corpses of the Syrian people,\u201d the party chief said in his weekly column in Al-Anbaa online newspaper. \u201cIt was signed with the blood of the hundreds of thousands who fell in [the process] of paving of the road for the agreement.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

However, the report goes on to say Lebanese officials welcome the deal.\u00a0 AL Monitor <\/b><\/i><\/a>brings more flavor to Jumblatt’s statement:<\/p>\n

For Jumblatt, the nuclear deal between Iran and the West is akin to Sykes-Picot<\/a> of 100 years ago that intended to carve the Ottoman-Arab lands with the decision of two Western colonial powers, the United Kingdom and France. The deal now reached between the West led by the United States and non-Arab Iran might have a similar effect on the Middle Eastern chessboard.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Wikipedia<\/strong><\/em> enlightens us as to Sykes\u2013Picot:<\/p>\n

The Sykes\u2013Picot Agreement<\/b>, officially known as the Asia Minor Agreement<\/b>, was a secret agreement between the governments of the United Kingdom<\/a> and France<\/a>,[1]<\/a><\/sup> with the assent of Russia<\/a>, defining their proposed spheres of influence<\/a> and control in the Middle East<\/a> should the Triple Entente<\/a> succeed in defeating the Ottoman Empire<\/a> during World War I<\/a>. The negotiation of the treaty occurred between November 1915 and March 1916.[2]<\/a><\/sup> The agreement was concluded on 16 May 1916.[3]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

The agreement effectively divided the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire outside the Arabian peninsula into areas of future British and French control or influence.[4]<\/a><\/sup> The terms were negotiated by the French diplomat Fran\u00e7ois Georges-Picot<\/a> and Briton Sir Mark Sykes<\/a>. The Russian Tsarist government was a minor party to the Sykes\u2013Picot agreement, and when, following the Russian Revolution<\/a> of October 1917, the Bolsheviks<\/a> exposed the agreement, “the British were embarrassed, the Arabs<\/a> dismayed and the Turks delighted.”[5]<\/a><\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But this time around the Turks may not be so happy:<\/p>\n

\n

The first Turkish official reaction to the nuclear deal reached in Vienna on July 14 came from Turkey\u2019s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu<\/a>. He said, \u201cIran should be constructive, attaching importance to political dialogue. \u2026 Particularly, it [Iran] should reconsider its role in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.\u201d<\/p>\n

The spirit of his words obviously reflected the uneasiness of Turkey from the potential of Iran re-emerging as an international political actor that may overshadow its ambitious western neighbor.<\/p>\n

“Constructive\u201d and \u201cattaching importance to political dialogue\u201d can easily be interpreted as \u201ctalk to us, talk to Turkey, so we could feel as important ourselves.\u201d As for the second part of his reaction, Cavusoglu means, \u201cTurkey and Iran are pitted against each other from the Gulf to the Mediterranean, in Mesopotamia and the Levant. An Iran strengthened by the West will further undermine Turkey\u2019s regional standing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is not entirely happy with the nuclear deal, reports AL Monitor‘s Arash Karami in an interview with the IRGC’s head, Mohammad\u00a0Ali Jafari: \u201cFor me, as a military official, what is more important than anything else \u2026 is the protection and promotion of Iran\u2019s defensive \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1572"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1575,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1572\/revisions\/1575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}