Any Agreement is Better than No Agreement

Let’s review some of the administration’s activity over the past week.

Lee Smith:

Haaretz reports that the administration misled Israel regarding the terms of the proposed interim agreement with Iran over its nuclear weapons program. One senior Israeli official explained that on Wednesday Israel had seen an outline that the Israelis “didn’t love but could live with.” Thursday morning French and British officials, and not the White House, told the Israelis that the terms had changed and were much more favorable than what they’d been shown previously. “Suddenly it changed to something much worse that included a much more significant lifting of sanctions,” said the Israeli official. “The feeling was that the Americans are much more eager to reach an agreement than the Iranians.”

Natan B. Sachs lays out some of the particulars.

On substance, the Israelis, like the French, appear very concerned about the provisions of the interim deal that: (a) permitted Tehran to continue some uranium enrichment; (b) allowed Iran to continue building the heavy water reactor in Arak (with only an Iranian commitment not to activate it), which would preserve the Iranian short-cut to nuclear capabilities via a plutonium — rather than uranium — track; and, most notably, (c) provided Tehran with incentives that the Israelis see as the beginning of the dismantling of the sanctions regime. Israel’s concern is that the proposed sanctions relief will not, in practice, be reversible, while the Iranian commitments could be easily reversed (and in the case of Arak will not even be halted).

The French objections to the deal led the P5+1 countries to demand more of Iran, so the Iranian team left without a deal to return for consultations.

Now the New York Times is reporting Kerry and Biden Ask for Room to Reach a Nuclear Deal With Iran.

Mr. Kerry, briefing the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, made his case against the committee’s moving forward with a proposal for new sanctions even as Western diplomats were talking about easing existing sanctions in exchange for concessions on Iran’s nuclear program. …

The briefing was part of an all-out effort by the administration both to tamp down congressional saber rattling and to move diplomacy forward to reach the agreement that proved elusive over the weekend in Geneva. President Obama has made a flurry of calls to the leaders of Britain and France ahead of a resumption of nuclear negotiations in Geneva on Nov. 21 and 22. On Tuesday night, he called Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, to discuss Iran, among other issues.

A complementary article in the Wall Street Journal, U.S. Holds Firm on Iran Diplomacy (Google search terms) reports:

Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz said in Jerusalem on Wednesday that steps under consideration by the U.S. and international powers directly or indirectly would ease the punitive sanctions by about $40 billion a year, or around 40% of the overall annual impact. …

Ms. Psaki dismissed the Israeli estimate, and wouldn’t give a U.S. estimate for the impact of the sanctions relief being considered, but said it would be considerably less than the figure Mr. Steinitz cited. …

“Those who claim our proposal is not a fair deal and makes too many concessions should ask themselves why the Iranians turned it down,” a Treasury Department official said.

I find it interesting that a charge that Secretary Kerry misled Israel doesn’t get disputed, but the State Department goes after Minister Steinitz for his figures, without offering any of their own. Still the Treasury official’s question is an interesting one. Why did Iran turn down the deal?

Let’s go to Iran and Western Powers Clash Over Why Nuclear Talks Failed at the New York Times:

 “It’s the United States which should get their partners on board, not Iran,” said Mohammad Ali Shabani, a political analyst with close ties to Mr. Zarif. “From the information that is available, what was on the table was an American proposal. It was France that ripped into it, not Iran.”

The official quoted by the Wall Street Journal meant to suggest that the sanctions relief was not so significant as to entice Iran to close a deal. But the Iranians tell a different story. The Iranians were bothered by the stricter conditions added by the French. They apparently were happy with the terms offered by Kerry before France got involved. So the administration talk about the sanctions relief is misdirection. And if Iran was bothered by the restrictions imposed by France, the level of sanctions doesn’t necessarily matter. Further diplomacy, in this case, would mean trying to water down the French demands.

In Opening the Door for a Bad Nuclear Deal with Iran, Maseh Zarif explained that there are three requirements for a nuclear weapon: fissile material, a nuclear trigger and a delivery system.

The enriched uranium and Arak reactor (a & b mentioned by Natan Sachs above) provide two paths to the fissile material. The asphalted area at Parchin appears to be covering up an area where nuclear triggers were tested. Iran has an extensive ballistic missile program. Ballistic missiles would be the “delivery systems” of nuclear devices. And this week, a general of the Iran Revolutionary Guard boasted that Iran’s ballistic missiles are even more accurate now.

Despite the claims of the Obama administration that we need not worry about Iranian nuclear weapons (because of the phantom fatwa), there’s a pretty strong circumstantial case that Iran is not pursuing a strictly peaceful nuclear program. Taken together with Iran’s involvement in the bloody Syrian civil war and its sponsorship of Hezbollah an international terrorist organization, Iran’s nuclear ambitions should be treated with the greatest suspicion. Yet the administration argues that it is those claiming that the Supreme Leader doesn’t really have new nuclear-free clothing who are the obstacles to peace!

If the argument was simply that the administration wanted to give Iran more time to come around to the P5+1’s way of thinking, it wouldn’t be so bad. But it’s clear that the administration is looking to weaken the West’s demands; not weaken Iran’s resolve. As with Syria, the President seems more interested in making an agreement that would mask his inaction than actually achieving his stated goal. (In this case preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons; previously it was getting rid of Syria’s chemical weapons.)

John Kerry and the Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week in Diplomacy

I almost feel bad for Secretary of State, John Kerry. This really has been a brutal few days for him.

There was the op-ed by Jackson Diehl John Kerry’s Middle East dream world

All this was before his weekend trip to Geneva for what became a failed attempt to close a deal with Iran on its nuclear program. Kerry’s conclusion: “I can tell you, without any reservations, we made significant progress.”

Stipulated: The mission of the U.S. secretary of state is to tackle big problems diplomatically, even if it means taking on missions impossible. Still, it’s hard to think of a previous chief of Foggy Bottom who has so conspicuously detached himself from on-the-ground realities. …

If any one of Kerry’s dreams comes true, the world would be better off, so I hope skeptics like me will be proved wrong. If not, this secretary of state will be remembered as a self-deceiving bumbler — and his successor will have some large messes to clean up.

The op-ed inspired this tweet, from New York Times White House reporter Mark Landler, a big administration fan.

For those of us on tour with John Kerry , this is like getting a letter from Dad, cutting off the credit card: http://t.co/pZJnTG4mEV

— Mark Landler (@MarkLandler) November 11, 2013

Like I said, brutal.

Then there was Lee Smith in The Weekly Standard (citing a much-cited Ha’aretz article):

Haaretz reports that the administration misled Israel regarding the terms of the proposed interim agreement with Iran over its nuclear weapons program. One senior Israeli official explained that on Wednesday Israel had seen an outline that the Israelis “didn’t love but could live with.” Thursday morning French and British officials, and not the White House, told the Israelis that the terms had changed and were much more favorable than what they’d been shown previously. “Suddenly it changed to something much worse that included a much more significant lifting of sanctions,” said the Israeli official. “The feeling was that the Americans are much more eager to reach an agreement than the Iranians.”

When Kerry landed in Geneva Friday, only a few small details were left to sort out before striking an agreement. But the problem wasn’t the Iranian side, rather it was France that wouldn’t sign off on the “bracketed text” in the draft document. In other words, after misleading the Israelis, the administration had hoped to present the deal as a fait accompli. In scuttling the agreement, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius saved the day—for the time being.

Commenting on the same Ha’aretz article, Michael Doran tweeted:

https://twitter.com/Doranimated/status/399915805460004864

This has been followed by Bret Stephens with Axis of Fantasy vs. Axis of Reality (or use Google Search to get there.) After familiarizing us with Wendy Sherman’s career, he gets to his target. Again, it is the Secretary of State.

But the French also understand that the sole reason Iran has a nuclear program is to build a nuclear weapon. They are not nonchalant about it. The secular republic has always been realistic about the threat posed by theocratic Iran. And they have come to care about nonproliferation too, in part because they belong to what is still a small club of nuclear states. Membership has its privileges.

This now puts the French at the head of a de facto Axis of Reality, the other prominent members of which are Saudi Arabia and Israel. In this Axis, strategy is not a game of World of Warcraft conducted via avatars in a virtual reality. “We are not blind, and I don’t think we’re stupid,” a defensive John Kerry said over the weekend on “Meet the Press,” sounding uncomfortably like Otto West (Kevin Kline) from “A Fish Called Wanda.” When you’ve reached the “don’t call me stupid” stage of diplomacy, it means the rest of the world has your number.

(Since I’m focusing on Iran here, let me just add parenthetically that Secretary of State Kerry got blasted by Ambassador Alan Baker for the legal and historical ignorance he displayed in his undiplomatic tirade directed at Israel last week.)

Reading through these articles what emerges is a portrait of a man who is ill suited for diplomacy.

But not everyone views Secretary of State Kerry in such a negative light. There is, for example, the New York Times. In an article Iran Balked at Language of Draft Nuclear Deal, Western Diplomats Say, three reporters, including the aforementioned Mark Landler tell us the legend of John Kerry.

Many reports have ascribed the failure of the talks to France’s insistence that any agreement put tight restrictions on a heavy-water plant that Iran is building, which can produce plutonium.

But while France took a harder line than its partners on some issues, a senior American official said it was the Iranian delegation that balked at completing an interim agreement, saying that it had to engage in additional consultations in Tehran before proceeding further.

A senior American official who briefed Israeli reporters and experts in Jerusalem on Sunday said that the six world powers in the talks had approved a working document and presented it to the Iranians, according to Herb Keinon of The Jerusalem Post, who attended the briefing.

Read that middle paragraph again. Understand how it finesses what happened. It decouples the French toughness (did I really write that?) from the effect of having the Iranians go back for consultations. If the sequence had been written straightforwardly, the Iranian refusal to accept the deal would have been presented as a consequence of France taking “a harder line.” But that would imply that the Iranians had walked all over Kerry until he was bailed out by France, and that would just not do.

The Washington Post wasn’t much better, presenting Kerry (and the administration, generally) as a victim of those who are skeptical of the deal.

The outcome in Geneva already has provided ammunition to Obama administration critics at home and abroad. …

As it tries to seal the deal before opponents can derail it, the administration is launching its own sales effort. In addition to lobbying foreign leaders, Kerry will begin a round of congressional consultations this week. …

On the final leg of a 10-day trip to seven countries, Kerry said criticism of the proposed Iran accord is premature and ill-informed.

Kerry claims that his critics are ill-informed, but, towards the end of the article, the Post reports:

The Arak reactor, ostensibly designed for medical research and isotope production, has raised proliferation concerns because its spent nuclear fuel could be reprocessed to extract plutonium. Highly enriched uranium and plutonium can be used as fissile material in nuclear weapons. Iran has denied any plans to build nuclear weapons.

“Iran has said that its program is peaceful,” Kerry said. “The supreme leader [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] says he has issued a fatwa, the highest form of Islamic prohibition against some activity, and he said that is to prohibit Iran from ever seeking a nuclear weapon. What we are seeking to do is transform that fatwa into a legal code that universally is acceptable so that we can, in fact, prove that the program is peaceful.”

“[O]stensibly?” One does not need to be a nuclear physicist to know that this is false. The NRC informs us:

Over 1500 metric tons of plutonium have been produced world wide, some for weapons use, and most of the rest as a by-product of electricity production. It is important to note that the plutonium produced as a by-product in a nuclear power reactor is created in its many isotopic forms, including Pu-239, Pu-240, Pu-241, and Pu-242. This is known as “reactor-grade” plutonium. In contrast, “weapons-grade” plutonium contains almost pure (over 90%) Pu-239. Plutonium-239 is created in a reactor that is specially designed and operated to produce Pu-239 from uranium.

The reactor at Arak is a heavy water reactor, which is the kind that produces Plutonium 239.

The reporter here hasn’t done her basic homework. The intent to build the Arak reactor is what shows that the Iranian nuclear program is not peaceful. You don’t produce Plutonium-239, weapons grade plutonium, by accident; you have to intend to. Writing about “medical research” and the nonexistent “nuclear fatwa” with no skepticism is not reporting. It is repeating talking points. It is Kerry, not his critics, who is “ill-informed,” but you won’t get that from the Washington Post.

On any objective level, this has been an awful week for the Secretary of State, but you wouldn’t get that from reading the news pages of the New York Times or Washington Post.

Reporting on the Politics not the Substance of the Deal

Over the past few days the reporting from Geneva changed from anticipation of an imminent deal to a final “no deal.” Or “no deal” for now.

The New York Times reported Talks With Iran Fail to Produce a Nuclear Agreement. As almost all reporting on the P5+1 talks with Iran go it gives the credit to (or places the blame on) France for the failure of the two sides to reach an agreement.

The proposal under consideration in Geneva was to have been the first stage of a multipart agreement. It called for Iran to freeze its nuclear program for up to six months to allow negotiations on a long-term agreement without the worry that Iran was racing ahead to build a bomb. In exchange, the West was to have provided some easing of the international sanctions that have battered Iran’s economy.

After years of off-again, on-again talks, the deal would have been the first to brake Iran’s nuclear program.Despite the diplomats’ insistence on progress, the failure to clinch an agreement raised questions about the future of the nuclear talks, given the fierce criticism that the mere prospect of a deal whipped up in Israel and among Republicans and some Democrats in Congress.

Unfortunately, this frames the scuttling of the talks in terms of those looking for a compromise versus pro-Israel ideologues. Subsequent reporting in the article is more specific about some, but not all, of the real issues involved.

The Arak reactor has been a contentious negotiating point because it would give Iran another pathway to a bomb, using plutonium rather than enriched uranium. Moreover, the Iranian explanations for why it is building Arak have left most Western nations and nuclear experts skeptical. The country has no need for the fuel for civilian uses now, and the reactor’s design renders it highly efficient for producing the makings of a nuclear weapon.

Iran, which has always contended its nuclear program was for peaceful purposes only, insists that the heavy-water reactor is just another path toward the same goal of energy production.

While enriched uranium is one fuel that can be used for a nuclear explosive, so too is plutonium. Specifically, the PU-239 isotope of plutonium is considered “weapons grade.” The Nuclear Regulatory Commission informs us:

Plutonium-239 is created in a reactor that is specially designed and operated to produce Pu-239 from uranium.

If the Arak reactor was built for peaceful purposes, it would not have been designed to produce PU-239. So, yes, the reporting is essentially accurate, but the skepticism should be universal not qualified with “most Western nations and nuclear experts.” Furthermore, the construction of the Arak reactor proves that Iran’s nuclear program is not for “peaceful purposes only” and the Iranian claim should be presented not as something debatable, but as false in the face of observable evidence.

In terms of the deal being discussed, Iran “…refrain from operating or fueling the facility during the six months  the interim accord might last.” But if the reactor is not to be operational for a year, how is not operating it any sort of a concession? (Because the Arak reaction would produce plutonium, once it is operational, it could not be destroyed without severe environmental consequences.) This is a concession on paper only. Regarding Arak, the only term that should satisfy P5+1 is its destruction.

But here’s the problem:

The proposal under consideration in Geneva was to have been the first stage of a multipart agreement. It called for Iran to freeze its nuclear program for up to six months to allow negotiations on a long-term agreement without the worry that Iran was racing ahead to build a bomb. In exchange, the West was to have provided some easing of the international sanctions that have battered Iran’s economy.

This works well for Iran. Iran doesn’t want to roll back any part of its nuclear program. So any deal that “freezes” its gains in place is a victory for Iran. If Iran gets some lessening of sanctions for putting things on hold that’s gravy.

The Washington Post reported that the freezing of the building of the Arak reactor would be a step towards dismantling it in a permanent agreement. But if the reactor is to be destroyed, why leave it intact for now? Is it too much to ask Iran to make a concrete confidence building measure for the P5+1?

The New York Times also reported on an important difference in the way sanctions are viewed by the United States on one side and the EU (as represented by Britain, France and Germany) on the other:

French officials also noted a difference between the United States and Europe on the issue of sanctions relief. The most sweeping American sanctions on Iran’s oil and banking industries were passed by Congress, giving President Obama little flexibility to lift them.

That has led the Obama administration to focus on a narrower set of proposals involving Iranian cash that is frozen in overseas banks. Freeing that cash in installments, in return for specific steps by Iran, would not require the repeal of any congressional sanctions.

France and other European Union countries, however, face fewer political restrictions on ending their core sanctions, which means any decision to lift them could be more far-reaching. In addition, officials said, the measures would be harder to reinstate should the talks unravel or Iran renege on its pledges.

This is important information. It’s been reported that the administration does plan to unfreeze Iranian assetsas a way of circumventing sanctions. The United State views unfreezing assets as a substitute for easing sanctions; but Europe has no such leeway. European sanctions, once ease, would be difficult to re-impose.

In the cases of both the Washington Post and New York Times the reporting focused more on the politics of the negotiations than on the actual details. Judgments about Iran were generally suspended, with both papers choosing to cast the conflict as between those interested in an agreement and those opposed to the agreement. That Iran is responsible for much of the carnage is Syria was absent from any reporting. Nor was there any mention of Iran’s involvement in fomenting terror around the world.

Overall, despite the unfortunate emphasis on politics over substance, the New York Times covered this weekend’s summit better. The Washington Post’s coverage was marred by a quote towards the end.

“Blow number one against diplomacy today by the French,” tweeted Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council, a Washington-based grass-roots organization. “Next week, Congress will pass [new sanctions legislation against Iran]. Blow Number 2.”

There is plenty of documentation that the NIAC (and Parsi specifically) has ties to Iran. Using the group’s self-description as a “grass-roots organization,” is irresponsible. It is hardly a disinterested party.

In other words instead of framing the negotiations as being about the West trying to rein in a rogue regime, the focus of reporting put the onus on those opposed to the deal.

Phony Polonium

The New York Times reports Swiss Report Supports Theory Arafat Was Poisoned. Now, of course, the New York Times isn’t the only news outlet to be reporting this. But is it news?

When someone makes an incredible claim, it is the job of the news media to investigate it and challenge it if necessary. The claim Arafat was poisoned with polonium ignores a very important detail, as Brian Thomas writes: if Arafat had ingested polonium in 2004, there simply wouldn’t be any trace of it in his remains by now. That’s science not speculation.

Yahoo! answers some questions about polonium poison and informs us:

Swiss scientists say Arafat had symptoms commonly linked to radiation poisoning, including nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and liver and kidney failure — but not two other classic symptoms, hair loss and a weaker immune system.

While the liver and kidney were not reported at the time, “persistent vomiting, diarrhea and stomach pains” were.

As any of the last pictures of Arafat recall, (see above) his face was still adorned with a beard at the time he was brought to France for the last time. Actually these symptoms would be consistent will gall bladder disease, and Arafat, at the time, was reported to be suffering from gallstones. Like the symptoms mentioned above this too was reported by the New York Times. Why didn’t the reporter see if there was anything in her own paper’s reporting that supported her current reporting?

Perusing though the New York Times article on the Swiss study the name Al Jazeera appears four times, and yet no significance is attached to this. Have you seen Al Jazeera? Here’s a screenshot.

Al Jazeera is very invested in keeping this story alive and yet somehow that was also missed.

Reuters reported (h/t Elder of Ziyon)

Professor David Barclay, a British forensic scientist retained by Al Jazeera to interpret the results of the Swiss tests, said the findings from Arafat’s body confirmed the earlier results from traces of bodily fluids on his underwear, toothbrush and clothing.

“[R]etained?!” My God!!! Neither Al Jazeera nor its expert were disinterested parties to this investigation!

Here’s probably the most interesting line in this week’s New York Times report

Ms. Arafat’s relations with the current Palestinian leadership are notoriously hostile.

The reason for that is simple: money.

Let’s check what the New York Times reported immediately after Arafat’s death, Mystery Lingers: Whereabouts of His Hidden Fortune:

There has been much speculation about how much money went to support the lavish living of his wife, Suha, in Paris, with reports from her enemies in the Palestinian Authority of subsidies of some $100,000 a month. But the sums were relatively small compared with Mr. Arafat’s total holdings. …

Mr. Arafat’s most visible current financial adviser, Muhammad Rashid, is a Kurd who is believed to control nearly $1 billion in assets for Mr. Arafat and the P.L.O., Israeli officials said. But Mr. Rashid, who went to Paris to be at Mr. Arafat’s bedside, is only one of a number of financial advisers, and not necessarily the main one, they said.

There’s no discussion of Arafat being poisoned, just the well financed lifestyle of his widow.

But that’s not all, Mohammed Rashid plays a role in all this too. He, too, is on the outs with the PA. You see, last year shortly before Al Jazeera “broke” the story of Arafat’s poisoning, it issued a warrant for the arrest of Mohammed Rashid for embezzlement. A month later, Rashid broadcast that Mahmoud Abbas was worth $100 million. (A pittance compared to Arafat’s fortune, but, for most people, quite a lavish bounty.

Oh and one of the people Al Jazeera interviewed to establish that Arafat was killed was Mohammed Rashid.

Most likely the goal of the “news” Arafat’s poisoning was to restore the his reputation and that of his wife. Or at least, it was to distract Palestinians from her lavish lifestyle. Possibly it was an effort to rehabilitate Rashid at the expense of Abbas.

Last year, when the “investigation” first gaining attention Barry Rubin debunked and noted that the accusation was just a modern day version of that antisemitic perennial, the blood libel.

Instead of doing basic research such as asking disinterested scientists, checking its own archives, or even examining the motives of people making the charges – and they certainly didn’t follow the money – the New York Times abetted a scheme to turn a corrupt murderer into a victim.

The New York Times, of course was not alone in this. Accepting the Palestinian narrative unquestioningly is second nature to many in the media. And its not only the media. Yesterday, Secretary of State John Kerry threatened Israel even as he apparently prepares to make a bad deal rather than no deal with the world’s leading exporter of terrorism.

[Photo: MOXNEWSd0tC0M / YouTube ]