Tag Archive: Negotiations


Iran Nuclear Deal: Saudi Arabia Warns It Will Strike Out On Its Own

 

 

 

” A senior advisor to the Saudi royal family has accused its Western allies of deceiving the oil rich kingdom in striking the nuclear accord withIran and said Riyadh would follow an independent foreign policy.

  Nawaf Obaid told a think tank meeting in London that Saudi Arabia was determined to pursue its own foreign and policy goals. Having in the past been reactive to events, the leading Sunni Muslim nation was determined to be pro-active in future.

  Mr Obaid said that while Saudi Arabia knew that the US was talking directly to Iran through a channel in the Gulf state of Oman, Washington had not directly briefed its ally.

  “We were lied to, things were hidden from us,” he said. “The problem is not with the deal struck in Geneva but how it was done.” “

 

   Another ally , albeit an ally of convenience , sold down the river by the incompetents in the Obama administration .Are there any allies left that he hasn’t alienated or stabbed in the back ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Iran, Expect A Fool’s Bargain

 

 

 

” I don’t think we’re stupid” — John Kerry, November 10, 2013

It’s always a bad sign when your nation’s chief diplomat begins a process of tough negotiations with some brutal authoritarian adversaries by protesting his non-stupidity. Then again, we’ve reached the point where even Parisian socialists feel the need to remind the U.S. Secretary of State of certain undeniable geopolitical realities on the ground. So here we are, seriously entertaining what the French Foreign Minister rightly warned could be a “fool’s bargain” with Iran.

Attention last week was focused on the failure of the Western powers to reach an interim nuclear deal with Tehran. That was the potential deal that made the French nervous. The bigger picture, however, is the broader set of negotiations over the coming months and their implications for American national security.

If Iran actually were to agree to a complete and verifiable dismantling of its nuclear weapons program, stop enriching and reprocessing uranium, shut down key facilities, and ship out all related materials – in full cooperation with international inspectors – then, of course, this would be most welcome. But there is little prospect of this kind of cooperation, or of this kind of deal.  Iran hasnever even admitted that it has a nuclear weapons program, and it has been regularly mendacious about the true extent of its uranium enrichment facilities. This is not the behavior of a country simply looking for the peaceful use of nuclear power … or of one willing to give up the bomb. “

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Obama’s Disastrous Iranian Deal

 

 

 

 

” The headline of the lead, page one article in The Wall Street Journal on Friday, November 8 was “U.S., Iran Close In on Nuclear Deal” with a sub-headline “West Set to Ease Some Financial Sanctions in Exchange for Tehran Freezing Most Advance Work.’ Secretary of State John Kerry cut short a visit to Middle East states, including Israel, returning to Geneva, where the deal was reportedly close to being signed.

We now know that Obama began to ease financial sanctions before the latest negotiations began. He did so secretly.

Shades of “Munich” and the infamous 1938 deal with the Nazi regime that a British Prime Minister promised would bring “peace in our time.” That level of naiveté resulted in World War Two, which began a year later when Germany invaded Poland after negotiating a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union that was itself later invaded.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN

 

    No , not that haughty , French looking secretary of state John (Did I mention I served in Vietnam) Kerry , the real French … They are the saviors (so far) of the Iranian nuclear negotiations . If it wasn’t for some Gaulist backbone the Kerry/Obama crowd would have folded like a cheap suit .

 

   

More of that much heralded “Change” . Only these two clowns could make France look like the hardliner in international affairs.

 

 

” Who ever thought that when it came to foreign affairs we would some day be saying “Thank God for the French”?  It seems that even France can’t take the “modalities” of the French-looking John Kerry (“modalities” being the precious word Kerry used on Meet the Press yesterday to describe appeasement).  Maybe Kerry forgot to pack his magic hat.  Anyway, Jonathan Tobin notes at Commentary.com:

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius’s “torpedoing” of the talks by his insistence on more concessions on both the Islamist state’s enrichment of uranium and their construction of a plutonium plant enraged the Iranians and frustrated Kerry and some of the other negotiators. While there is a lively debate about the French motive for their tough stance, those who care about stopping Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon can only say thank heaven for the French.”

 

Read the rest at Powerline

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rouhani’s Reign Of Terror

 

 

 

” Diplomats have now left Geneva with a nuclear deal with Iran tantalizingly close, but uncompleted. Today, Le Monde outlined the French government’s reasons for refusing to sign onto the deal:…

The current diplomatic process with Iran dates back 20 years when German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel proposed “a critical dialogue”–dialogue because that’s the lifeblood of diplomacy, and “critical” because Kinkel promised that the dialogue would tackle not only diplomatic issues relating to Iran’s external behavior but also tough issues such as Iran’s atrocious human-rights abuses.”

 

    In twenty years of talks , summits , meetings and negotiations with the mullahs NOT ONE DAMN THING has been accomplished other than providing the revolutionary regime with the time necessary to crush their internal opposition , become the world-wide sponsor of terrorism and journey to within a hair’s breadth of the moment when they possess the means to turn the lands of Israel to glass , all with impunity .

 

” There is a consistent pattern—certainly true under Iran’s former “reformist” president Mohammad Khatami—that as Iranian officials launch a charm offensive toward the West, they simultaneously crack down at home in order to make clear to the public that under no circumstances should the Iranian people believe that the Iranian leadership was abandoning their commitment to revolutionary values. Usually, those living in the periphery of the state suffer worse, if only because Iranian officials recognize that outside journalists do not cover those areas.”

 

   Not one of the alleged “moderate” presidents of the Islamic Republic has conceded a thing to the west , nor have any done anything substantive in the way of human rights towards their own people , especially ethnic minorities other than as window dressing to provide cover for the appeasers of the First world . 

 

” That appears to be what is occurring now. According to a Reuters report based on a conversation with Abdul Rahman Haji Ahmadi, the exiled leader of Iran’s most prominent ethnic Kurdish party:

“Rouhani had released political prisoners, but none were of non-Persian ethnicity, he said. He highlighted the killings of 52 Iranian dissidents in a camp in eastern Iraq in September, which he said was neglected abroad. The dissidents belonged to the Mujahadin-e-Khalq (MEK), which wants Iran’s clerical leaders overthrown. They are no longer welcome in Iraq under the Tehran-aligned, Shi’ite Muslim-led government. Haji-Ahmadi also pointed to Iran’s execution of 16 people in a day last month, most of them Baluchi, Sunni Muslims who lived near the Pakistan border, as well as two PJAK members.”

 

   And now , as the mullahs of Tehran parade their figurehead “moderate” president about the world stage in a kind of Kabuki demonstration of their desire for “peace, reform and change” , as their Himmler scientists ready the Iranian “Final Solution” and the time for the west to be firm and united has arrived ( long past actually ) , when more than ever there is a need for a Churchill , we are lead by Barack “Chamberlain” Obama who , in pursuit of some sort of legacy beyond the fiasco that bears his name , is pulling out all of the stops in an effort to declare “Peace In Our Time” . God help the people of the Middle East . God help us all .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Obama: ‘I Am Not A Dictator’

 

 

“I am not a dictator,” President Obama said Friday while defending his efforts to stop the sequester. “I’m the president.”

Obama said there are limits to what he can do to get a deal on the sequester during a press conference in which he blamed Republicans for standing in the way of a deal.

But Obama on Friday characterized himself as the reasonable party in the talks and someone who couldn’t force Republicans to make a deal.

“I know that this has been some of the conventional wisdom that’s been floating around Washington that even though most people agree that I’m being reasonable, that most people agree that I’m presenting a fair deal, the fact that they don’t take it means that I should somehow do a Jedi mind-meld and convince them” to agree on a deal, Obama said.”

 

 

 

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“You get nothing,” the president said. “I get that for free.”

 

 

 

LIBERALS STONEWALL ON ENTITLEMENT REFORM, REPUBLICANS CAVE ON TAXES

 

 

 

Say what you will of the Dems , and we’ve said plenty , but they have backbone , something sorely lacking on the right side of the aisle .

 

 

 

 

 

 ” It’s becoming quite clear that liberals are stonewalling on entitlement cuts while conservatives are caving on higher taxes for the wealthy. Barack Obama said  yesterday that the Republicans would cave, asserting that he was “confident”:

I’m pretty confident that Republicans would not hold middle-class taxes hostage to trying to protect tax cuts for high-income individuals. I don’t think they’ll do that.

There have been rumors that Obama would consider changing the minimum age for Medicare to 67, but Obama’s statements belie that. He intoned:

When you look at the evidence, it’s not clear that it actually saves a lot of money. But what I’ve said is ‘Let’s look at every avenue because what is true is we need to strengthen Social Security, we need to strengthen Medicare for future generations.’ The current path is not sustainable because we’ve got an aging population and healthcare costs are shooting up so quickly.

Obama is sticking with his meme, that he is concerned about the middle class:

I’d like to see a big package. But the most important thing we can do is make sure that middle-class taxes do not go up on Jan. 1st.

Shh. Don’t mention ObamaCare hitting after January 1.

Meanwhile liberals are absolutely intransigent about entitlement cuts.”

 

 

 

Illustration By Michael Ramirez

Henninger: Who Speaks for

the GOP?

 

 

 

 

 

 ” Where is the Big Picture? Why is it not possible for John Boehner or anyone else in this party to articulate for the dumbstruck public watching these dreadful cliff negotiations what the Republican Party stands for? Who speaks for the GOP?

No end of people keep saying of the Republicans that “they” should do this or “they” should do that. Who’s “they”? It is no one. With the Republicans, there’s no “they” there.

Barack Obama is controlling the cliff narrative now because the GOP has no one whose job is counter-narrative. Mr. Obama this week was recycling campaign speeches about the middle class at the Daimler Detroit diesel plant while the GOP has been a Babel of Beltway voices. Don’t any of these senators go to church on Sunday morning, rather than running around television punching the “entitlement crisis” card? “

Fiscal Cliff: ABC Talks Taxes 17 Times More Than Spending Cuts

 

 ” America is racing toward the Jan. 1 fiscal cliff deadline when tax hikes and spending cuts automatically take effect. But the overwhelming news focus has been only on tax hikes as a solution to the problem. Since the election, ABC News has talked about raising taxes more than 17 times more than spending cuts.

The network isn’t alone, it was just the worst of the bunch. The Media Research Center’s Business and Media Institute analyzed evening news coverage of the budget battle and found both NBC and CBS also discussed taxes far more than spending – spinning the Capitol Hill battle into one where the liberal agenda of increased spending dominated. Overall, the networks focused more than twice as much on tax increases as they did on spending (29 minutes 31 seconds to 12 minutes 54 seconds). “

Someone seems to be playing politics with national security

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‘This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.” That’s what President Obama was overheard telling then Russian
President Dmitry Medvedev in March on an open microphone when he thought he was speaking privately.The exchange is worth recalling with the weekend story that the White House has agreed “in principle” to a bilateral meeting with Iran on its nuclear weapons program—after the election.

  A White House spokesman immediately denied the New York Times report “that the United States and Iran have agreed to one-
on-one talks or any meeting after the American elections.”

“The following is the text of a statement Tuesday
by rating agency Moody’s:

Budget negotiations during the 2013 Congressional legislative
session will likely determine the direction of the US government’s Aaa
rating and negative outlook, says Moody’s Investors Service in the
report “Update of the Outlook for the US Government Debt Rating.”

If those negotiations lead to specific policies that produce a
stabilization and then downward trend in the ratio of federal debt to
GDP over the medium term, the rating will likely be affirmed and the
outlook returned to stable, says Moody’s.

If those negotiations fail to produce such policies, however,
Moody’s would expect to lower the rating, probably to Aa1.”