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Posts Tagged ‘Ali Khameini’

Obama’s New World Disorder

March 6, 2014 Leave a comment
President’s foreign policy invites chaos. kn032311dAPR20110323064519

Count me among those — a dwindling minority, I’m afraid — who think that politics should end at the water’s edge. No one, Republican or Democrat, ought to take pleasure at the spectacle of America’s foreign policies failing and the perception of America as a hobbled giant.

That is, self-evidently, what we’re seeing: Russian boots are on the ground in UkraineNorth Korea is firing missiles. Iran’s negotiators are playing high-stakes poker, while the U.S.-led side doesn’t seem to know a flush from a straight.

In SyriaIran’s proxies confront al Qaeda forces (forces the administration two years ago congratulated itself for having defeated) while the much-ballyhooed agreement to remove chemical weapons has stalled.

Hard-won gains in Iraq have been squandered. There’s a real possibility that the Taliban will reclaim Afghanistan once American troops depart. Venezuela is in turmoil. China is acting the bully in Asia. Read more…

Iran Nuke Deal Quietly Collapses

December 17, 2013 Leave a comment

Less than a month after it was hailed as “a great diplomatic coup,” the so-called Geneva accord to halt Iran’s nuclear ambitions seems to have come unstuck.

Kurdish activists in London protest the execution of rebels in Iran. The regime executes an average of 10 people a day.

Kurdish activists in London protest the execution of rebels in Iran. The regime executes an average of 10 people a day.

The official narrative in Tehran is that Iran signed nothing. “There is no treaty and no pact,” says Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham, “only a statement of intent.”

Originally, Iran’s official media had presented the accord as a treaty (qarardad) but it now refers to a “letter of agreement” (tavafoq nameh).

The initial narrative claimed that the P5+1 group of nations that negotiated the deal with Iran had recognized the Islamic Republic’s right to enrich uranium and agreed to start lifting sanctions over a six-month period. In exchange, Iran would slow its uranium enrichment and postpone for six months the installation of equipment for producing plutonium, an alternate route to making a bomb. A later narrative claimed that the accord wasn’t automatic and that the two sides had appointed experts to decide the details (“modalities”) and fix a timetable. Read more…