Noah Pollak, Executive Director of the Emergency Committee for Israel, emailed us this statement:
“The Geneva Agreement is a defeat for the United States and the West. It fails to uphold even the minimum demand of repeated UN Security Council resolutions that Iran must stop enriching uranium. For the next six months, the centrifuges will not be dismantled and will continue to spin, uranium will be enriched, the 20 percent enriched uranium will stay in Iran, and a reactor designed to produce bomb-ready plutonium will remain just months away from completion. Iran will continue its march to nuclear weapons, with perhaps a brief pause in some parts of the program — but it will be a pause that refreshes, since Iran will be rewarded right away with significant sanctions relief, with the additional likelihood that the rest of the sanctions regime will begin to crumble.
“Congress should make clear that it does not support this deal. Congress should make clear that just because the Obama administration seems to have taken all our options off the table, our allies need not follow us down this futile path of accommodating the Iranian regime’s nuclear ambitions. In particular, Congress should make clear the United States will support Israel if Israel decides she must act to prevent a regime dedicated to her destruction from acquiring the means to do so.”
To get a sense of how flawed is the deal signed on Saturday in Geneva between the world powers and Iran don’t go to the western press for analysis – check out the Iranian version. Because, like it or not, the outcome of this deal will be decided in Tehran, not in Washington DC.
Here’s the Fars news agency’s account, verbatim, of the Geneva deal:
“Iran and the Group signed a four-page agreement after five days of difficult and intensive negotiations and more than a decade-long nuclear standoff.
“One of the pages of the agreement signed in Geneva deals with the easing and removal of the US-led western sanctions imposed against Iran.
“According to the deal, no further sanctions will be imposed against Iran.
“Oil embargoes on the country will be halted. Iran’s crude sales will be maintained at the current level and Iran’s oil revenues will also be released.
“Sanctions on Iran’s petrochemical sector will be completely removed and the sanctions on the country’s auto industry will also be lifted.
“Sanctions on exports of gold and precious stones and metals, as well as the ban on the insurance of oil cargoes will be fully lifted.
“Iran’s right to enrichment has been recognized in two places of the document.
“According to the agreement, the structure of Iran’s nuclear program will be fully preserved. There is no turning back in Iran’s uranium enrichment activities.
“Fordo and Natanz (nuclear sites) will also continue operation.
“In return, Iran will reciprocate with a series of confidence-building measures.
“Iran as a confidence-building measure will not further expand its activities in Arak, Natanz and Fordo in the next six months, but (uranium) enrichment below five percent and production of the relevant enriched material in Fordo and Natanz will continue as before.
“Iran will also continue its research and development in its nuclear program.
“According to the agreement, the 20 percent enrichment will not continue in the next six months since Iran does not need any more 20-percent enrichment. All the enriched uranium will remain inside Iran and no material will be taken out from the country.”
Permit me to summarize: No more oil embargo. No more sanctions. Iran’s right to enrichment has been recognized.
For once, the semi-official Iranian news agency has issued an article The Jewish Press can endorse unequivocally. They’re definitely saying it like it is.
Now the lies, most of which were delivered by President Obama yesterday, and are collected in what the White House calls “a fact sheet.”
According to the Administration, the deal “halts the progress of Iran’s nuclear program and rolls it back in key respects… The initial, six month step includes significant limits on Iran’s nuclear program and begins to address our most urgent concerns including Iran’s enrichment capabilities; its existing stockpiles of enriched uranium; the number and capabilities of its centrifuges; and its ability to produce weapons-grade plutonium using the Arak reactor.”