Obama administration's appeasement to Iranian Islamists

[American_Jihad]

Iran is a sovereign country and not a bunch of Islamists. We have a bunch of Islamists in Syria that should be sanctioned.

A referendum in December 1979 approved a theocratic constitution.[87] Although both nationalists and Marxists joined with Islamic traditionalists to overthrow the Shah, tens of thousands were executed by the Islamic regime afterward.

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Following the Iran–Iraq War, President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and his administration concentrated on a pragmatic pro-business policy of rebuilding and strengthening the economy without making any dramatic break with the ideology of the revolution. Rafsanjani served until 1997. Rafsanjani was succeeded by the moderate reformist Mohammad Khatami. However, Khatami is widely regarded as having been unsuccessful in achieving his goal of making Iran more free and democratic.[94]

Iran - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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The Sha´s regime was a brutal dictatorship without freedom of opinion. The government cooperated with the White House, this is why the regime was tolerated.

You said " not a bunch of Islamists" ---> Mullah - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mullah (Arabic: ملا*, Turkish: Molla) is generally used to refer to a Muslim man or woman, educated in Islamic theology and sacred law. The title, given to some Islamic clergy, is derived from the Arabic word مَوْلَى mawlā, meaning "vicar," "master" and "guardian." In large parts of the Muslim world, particularly Iran,

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Mullahs have frequently been involved in politics, but only recently have they actually taken power, when Islamists seized power in Iran in 1979,


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[American_Jihad]

The Dangerously Irrational Iranian Regime

January 16, 2014 by Ben Shapiro

On Tuesday, the Iranian government announced that it had reached a secret agreement with the West on its nuclear development. The details of the agreement were not released, but suffice it to say that the Iranians could not contain their glee. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani celebrated the deal with an English-language tweet claiming that the “world powers surrendered to Iranian nation’s will”; Iranian Army Commander Maj. Gen. Ataollah Salehi said the diplomatic breakthrough resulted from American military “weakness”; and the Iranian foreign minister laid a wreath at the tomb of the Beirut Marine barracks bomber.

Meanwhile, President Barack Obama urged the United States Congress to “give peace a chance.” After weeks of sending out his pacifist minions, including faux pro-Israel group J Street, to tell Americans that support for sanctions meant support for war, Obama himself echoed that message. “My preference is for peace and diplomacy,” the apparent flower-child-in-chief stated. “And this is one of the reasons why I’ve sent the message to Congress that now is not the time for us to impose new sanctions. Now is the time for us to allow the diplomats and technical experts to do their work.” He said that a rational, reasonable Iran would be “willing to walk through the door of opportunity that’s presented to them.”

Only Iran is not rational or reasonable. It is delusionally anti-Western and anti-Semitic, which means that America is now in negotiations not just with a terror-supporting state but radicals with more than a hint of insanity.

To prove this point, on Sunday, the Iranian semiofficial news agency FARS, which bills itself as independent but is effectively regime-run, ran a news article explaining that since the end of World War II, America had been run by a shadow government of Nazi space aliens. Seriously.

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The Dangerously Irrational Iranian Regime | FrontPage Magazine

 

[mamooth]

Real Americans don't think Bebe should be telling the USA when to go to war.

Many Republicans do. They're far more loyal to Israel than they are to the USA.

Kudos to Senator "I LOVE THE NSA!" Feinstein for pointing that out so aggressively. Turns out she's not totally worthless after all.

 

[American_Jihad]

What Churchill Would Make of Obama’s Iran Appeasement

January 17, 2014 by Daniel Greenfield

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Echoing that old Munich motion, the pro-Iran left is calling the nuclear deal that lets Iran keep its nukes and its targets their Geiger counters, Obama’s “achievement”. Any Democrat who challenges it is accused of obstructing the only foreign affairs achievement Obama can claim.

“Cory Booker wants to torpedo a major Obama achievement,” the New Republic shrieked. On MSNBC, Chris Hayes accused sixteen Democratic senators who wanted tougher measures on Iran of seeking a war to sabotage “Obama’s greatest foreign policy achievement” out of “fear” of the Israeli lobby.

Hayes and MSNBC were only echoing another famous Democrat, Joseph P. Kennedy, who warned of opposition to Munich by “Jew media” making noises meant to “set a match to the fuse of the world.”

Samuel Hoare, the Home Secretary, of whom King George V said, “No more coals to Newcastle, no more Hoares to Paris”, warned against those who wanted a sterner tone to bring an end to Hitler’s program of conquest as today’s Hoares warn against those who want to bring an end to Iran’s nuclear program.

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Their modern counterparts substitute the Supreme Leader of Iran for the Fuehrer, or leader, of Nazi Germany, but otherwise they make the same mistake.

To believe in world peace, they must believe in Hitler, in Stalin and in Khamenei and believe that regimes which ceaselessly talk of war, build weapons of war and torture and murder their own people on a whim somehow share their hopes for peace.

What Churchill Would Make of Obama?s Iran Appeasement | FrontPage Magazine

 

[Mojo2]

Check out my thread.

It has a link to a speech by Joseph Cirincione, who explains the Kerry Deal with Iran, superbly.

http://www.usmessageboard.com/iran/336001-i-couldn-t-tell-which-side-he-was-on.html#post8486657

 

[American_Jihad]

Check out my thread.

It has a link to a speech by Joseph Cirincione, who explains the Kerry Deal with Iran, superbly.

http://www.usmessageboard.com/iran/336001-i-couldn-t-tell-which-side-he-was-on.html#post8486657

Cirincione and the obama administration should study up on the the twelfth imam.

Iran gets the bomb, they'll use it...

 

[Mojo2]

Check out my thread.

It has a link to a speech by Joseph Cirincione, who explains the Kerry Deal with Iran, superbly.

http://www.usmessageboard.com/iran/336001-i-couldn-t-tell-which-side-he-was-on.html#post8486657

Cirincione and the obama administration should study up on the the twelfth imam.

Iran gets the bomb, they'll use it...

We're on the same side, you and I.

However, I posted the thread to get your opinion of what he said.

I hope you will take a few minutes to give it a chance.

 

[American_Jihad]

American Blood on Iranian Hands

January 22, 2014 by Daniel Greenfield

“The worst part for me is that nobody remembers,” Mark Nevells said last year on the anniversary of the Hezbollah bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut.

A Marine had thrown his body in front of the truck to try stop the vehicle and afterward for five days, Nevells and other Marines had dug through the rubble for the bodies of the men they had served with.

One of the first Marines on the scene heard voices coming from underneath the rubble. “Get us out. Don’t leave us.”

The Marines lost more people that day than at any time since Iwo Jima and the number of Americans murdered that day by a terrorist group was a record that would stand until September 11.

In Washington, the murder of 220 Marines and the Iranian, Ismail Ascari, who drove the truck full of explosives that tore through their barracks, are inconvenient truths and lost memories. And it has always been that way.

Before the attack, the NSA intercepted a message from Iranian intelligence in Tehran to the Iranian ambassador in Damascus ordering “a spectacular action against the United States Marines.”

Mohsen Rafiqdoost, Khomeini’s bodyguard who helped found Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and served as Minister of Revolutionary Guards during the bombing, boasted, “both the TNT and the ideology, which in one blast sent to hell 400 officers, NCOs, and soldiers at the Marines headquarters, were provided by Iran.”

Today Mohsen is a millionaire and stands to make a huge profit from the flow of goods after Obama’s weakening of sanctions on Iran. He also boasts of being the “father of Iran’s missile program” though there are so many in Iran making that same claim that Iran’s missile program is undeniably a bastard.

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Jimmy Carter, whose empowerment of the Ayatollah Khomeini left his hands covered in the blood of Americans murdered by Iranian terror, has come out to praised Obama and Kerry for “doing the right thing” while warning that sanctions on Iran would be a “devastating blow”.

All these horrific acts of terror took place as a result of Jimmy Carter’s appeasement of Iran. What blood price will be exacted for Obama’s appeasement of Iran?

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/american-blood-on-iranian-hands/

 

[American_Jihad]

Obama’s Deception on the Iranian Threat

January 30, 2014 by Joseph Klein

President Obama misled the American people in his January 28th State of the Union address regarding what Iran is required to do under the six-month interim nuclear agreement reached between Iran and the P5+1 nations – the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China) plus Germany. Obama made the following patently false claim about the implementation of the interim agreement: ”As we gather here tonight, Iran has begun to eliminate its stockpile of higher levels of enriched uranium.”

Iran has not eliminated anything. It has merely begun to temporarily convert part of its enriched uranium stockpile from a 20 percent enrichment level to a 5 percent enrichment level or below, and to covert the remainder of its 20 percent enriched uranium to oxide. These actions can be reversed by Iran at any time.

“We can return again to 20 percent [uranium] enrichment in less than one day and we can convert the [nuclear] material again,” Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Iranian television earlier this month. We are still waiting for an Obama administration nuclear expert to credibly refute this claim.

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Although Obama indicated that, if the negotiations fail, “he will be the first to call for more sanctions, and stand ready to exercise all options to make sure Iran does not build a nuclear weapon,” we have heard such “red lines” in the past that soon faded away.

The president missed an opportunity to explain truthfully to the American people what is at stake for the United States’ own national security interests if Iran is allowed to succeed in obtaining a nuclear bomb. Instead, he chose to lull the American people into a false sense of security.

Obama?s Deception on the Iranian Threat | FrontPage Magazine

 

[S.J.]

Obama’s Deception on the Iranian Threat

January 30, 2014 by Joseph Klein

President Obama misled the American people in his January 28th State of the Union address regarding what Iran is required to do under the six-month interim nuclear agreement reached between Iran and the P5+1 nations – the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China) plus Germany. Obama made the following patently false claim about the implementation of the interim agreement: ”As we gather here tonight, Iran has begun to eliminate its stockpile of higher levels of enriched uranium.”

Iran has not eliminated anything. It has merely begun to temporarily convert part of its enriched uranium stockpile from a 20 percent enrichment level to a 5 percent enrichment level or below, and to covert the remainder of its 20 percent enriched uranium to oxide. These actions can be reversed by Iran at any time.

“We can return again to 20 percent [uranium] enrichment in less than one day and we can convert the [nuclear] material again,” Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Iranian television earlier this month. We are still waiting for an Obama administration nuclear expert to credibly refute this claim.

...

Although Obama indicated that, if the negotiations fail, “he will be the first to call for more sanctions, and stand ready to exercise all options to make sure Iran does not build a nuclear weapon,” we have heard such “red lines” in the past that soon faded away.

The president missed an opportunity to explain truthfully to the American people what is at stake for the United States’ own national security interests if Iran is allowed to succeed in obtaining a nuclear bomb. Instead, he chose to lull the American people into a false sense of security.

Obama?s Deception on the Iranian Threat | FrontPage Magazine

I doubt if they have converted anything. It's more likely Obama is lying again to buy them time to get their weapon built.

 

[American_Jihad]

Howard Dean Now More Right-Wing on Iran than Obama​

January 30, 2014 by Daniel Greenfield

You know you’ve gone too far down the left-wing rabbit hole when Howard Dean, the anti-war candidate of the Iraq War, thinks your Iran policy is a ridiculous sellout.

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I guess Howard Dean is now a warmonger. But you have to ask just how far to the left has the left gone that Mr. Anti-War now qualifies as a warmonger?

Howard Dean Now More Right-Wing on Iran than Obama | FrontPage Magazine

 

[S.J.]

You gotta be hard core commie to be too far left for Howard Dean.

 

[American_Jihad]

Ayatollahs Celebrate 35 Year of Terror

February 6, 2014 by Majid Rafizadeh

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This considerably shifted the balance of power in the Middle East, as the Islamic Republic built a firmer alliance with Russia and China, to counter American and Israeli foreign policy objectives in the region.

Ceremonies began in Iran on Saturday, marking the 35th anniversary of the victory of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which deposed pro-US Muhammad Reza Shah and brought in the Islamic Republic.

The beginning of the 10 days of celebration, called the 10-Day Dawn (Fajr) festivities across Iran, marks the day when the late founder of the Islamic Republic Imam Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini arrived back home from exile on February 1 1979, after having spent more than 14 years away, mostly in the Iraqi holy city of Najaf, with some time in Turkey and France.

These 10 days will culminate in one of largest nationwide rallies on February 11th, to celebrate the anniversary of the triumph of the Islamic Revolution.

After overthrowing the secular and pro-Western state, the Ayatollahs instituted a new social order based primarily on Islamist thoughts, Shari’a law, and Shiite ideals like the introduction of Jurisprudent Leadership (Vilayat-e Faqih) and giving divine power to the Supreme Leader (Vali)—whose legitimacy lies in his piety and his supposedly unmatched knowledge of Islam.

Article 57 was added to the constitution to emphasize this shift: “The powers of government in the Islamic Republic are vested in the legislature, the judiciary, and the executive powers, functioning under the supervision of the absolute religious leader and the Leadership of the Ummah, in accordance with the forthcoming articles of this Constitution…”

This gave the Supreme leader the absolute power to veto, enact, or suspend any law that was deemed to be un-Islamic based on his interpretations. All articles of the constitutions became subject to approval of Islamic laws. This created an artificial façade of democracy. For example, while the constitution gives rights to writers, journalists, and bloggers to write freely, everything should still comply with Islamic and Shiite laws.

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When it comes to domestic policies, the Iranian government has definitely become more masterful in cracking down, suppressing, and implementing the discriminatory laws against religious minorities, segregating the society based on gender, executing dissidents, imposing dress code, stifling the potential of both society and economic opportunity. But this has also created a large section of the society (primarily the youth population under 30 years old who comprise approximately more than 50% of the Iranian population) to become disaffected and disenchanted with the Islamic regime. Finally, if there is going to be any real threat to the Ayatollahs and Iranian leaders, it will most likely be from this young section of the population, rather than any action from external forces.

Ayatollahs Celebrate 35 Year of Terror | FrontPage Magazine

 

[American_Jihad]

Iran Answers Appeasement with Warships

February 10, 2014 by Arnold Ahlert

Despite the alleged “good faith” negotiations taking place between Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and Secretary of State John Kerry, the world’s foremost state sponsor of terror is now testing the United States’ mettle. Iranian warships initially sent on their first trip to the Atlantic Ocean in January will now travel close to U.S. maritime borders. The move was revealed Saturday by a senior Iranian naval commander.

“Iran’s military fleet is approaching the United States’ maritime borders, and this move has a message,” said Adm. Afshin Rezayee Haddad of Iran’s Northern Navy Fleet, according to Iran’s Fars news agency. Fars further noted that Iran had warned the Obama administration they would initiate the deployment “in the next few years” back in September of 2012. At the time, Iran’s Navy Commander R.-Adm. Habibollah Sayyari noted that the gesture would be aimed at countering the U.S. Navy’s presence in Iranian waters. The U.S. Navy’s 5th fleet is based in Bahrain, across the Persian Gulf from Iran.

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Obama also said this in 2012: “I have, at this point, not ordered military engagement in the situation…We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus. That would change my equation. …”

The Iranian warships will be here soon. There is nothing the Obama administration has done that would cause the Mullahs to change their calculus and change course. Not when American weakness abounds and the Iranians sense they’re on the march.

Iran Answers Appeasement with Warships | FrontPage Magazine

 

[American_Jihad]

Obama’s Misconceptions on Iran

March 7, 2014 by Majid Rafizadeh

This week, I was invited to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference, and when listening to Secretary of State John Kerry’s and Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speeches and their major points about the Islamic Republic of Iran, several underlying issues appeared to highlight the Obama administration’s misconceptions and its uninformed foreign policy towards the Mullahs.

One of the crucial misunderstandings and misconceptions of the Obama administration is that it views the current status of American-Iranian rapprochement as similar to the American-Chinese rapprochement in the early 1970s with President Nixon’s trip to Beijing.

One the fundamental flaws in such an analogy is misunderstanding the character of the policies and political moves of the Iranian leadership. It is crucial to point out that the shift in policy made by Mao Zedong was a strategic one, while the current policies carried out by the Rouhani government and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Al Khamenei are tactical.

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Obama?s Misconceptions on Iran | FrontPage Magazine

 

[American_Jihad]

Israel Under Siege as Nuke Talks Open

March 20, 2014 by P. David Hornik

On Tuesday an explosive device that was planted along the Israeli-Syrian border wounded four Israeli soldiers, one of them seriously. Early Wednesday morning Israeli planes struck back—notably, not against Hizballah but against Syrian military targets, killing one Syrian soldier and wounding seven.

Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu said the Syrian targets that were hit “not only enabled the attack on our troops, they cooperated with it. Our policy is very clear—we strike at those who strike at us.”



A former chief of military intelligence said:

The execution of [Tuesday’s] attack was professional. There is no doubt that the Syrians knew about it—they may even have carried it out for Hizballah. Something like this, if it proves true, is a game changer….

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Israel Under Siege as Nuke Talks Open | FrontPage Magazine

 

[American_Jihad]

Obama’s final legacy
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Obama has betrayed America. He has betrayed the American victims of Iranian terror. He has betrayed the American soldiers who were murdered, maimed and tortured by Iran’s terrorist armies. He has betrayed hundreds of millions of Americans in the homeland who will be forced to raise their children under the shadow of Iran’s nuclear terror.

His nuclear treason isn’t just a betrayal of America. For the first time since the end of the Cold War, it makes the mass murder of millions of Americans by a vicious enemy possible once again.

Obama has impoverished millions of Americans, he has the blood of soldiers and police officers on his hands, but his final legacy may be collaboration in an act of mass murder that would rival Adolf Hitler.
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Obama’s Genocidal Treason

 

[Bleipriester]

Obama’s final legacy
...
Obama has betrayed America. He has betrayed the American victims of Iranian terror. He has betrayed the American soldiers who were murdered, maimed and tortured by Iran’s terrorist armies. He has betrayed hundreds of millions of Americans in the homeland who will be forced to raise their children under the shadow of Iran’s nuclear terror.

His nuclear treason isn’t just a betrayal of America. For the first time since the end of the Cold War, it makes the mass murder of millions of Americans by a vicious enemy possible once again.

Obama has impoverished millions of Americans, he has the blood of soldiers and police officers on his hands, but his final legacy may be collaboration in an act of mass murder that would rival Adolf Hitler.
...
Obama’s Genocidal Treason

Your hardliner opinion totally ignores that it wasn´t Iran that interfered in US affairs. You blame Hezbollah but who else could withstand Israeli attacks in Lebanon. If the US wasn´t busy to put through their random and shortsighted interests, nobody would have died. It is madness to turn oneself into the service of the lunatic madmen in the Pentagon, death is preprogrammed. If you don´t die by enemy action it is your own depleted uranium ammunition that will kill you.

 

[American_Jihad]

Iran Breaches The Nuclear Deal
While Obama continues to remove the sanctions.
December 14, 2015
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh

Not long after signing the nuclear deal, the ruling clerics of the Islamist state of Iran have clearly breached the agreement and several of the United Nations Security Council Resolutions. What is the Obama administration's response? He is turning a blind eye to this vital issue. The administration is ignoring these blatant violations and continuing with its efforts to lift sanctions on the Ayatollah’s regime.

The Joint Plan of Action Agreement (JCPOA), which was reached between the six world powers and Iran, clearly mentions "addressing UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions" regarding the Islamic Republic. Specifically, the JCPOA (UNSCR 2231 Annex II, paragraph three) states that Iran should not undertake any ballistic missiles activity “until the date eight years after the JCPOA Adoption Day or until the date on which the IAEA submits a report confirming the Broader Conclusion, whichever is earlier."

Despite agreeing to the nuclear deal, Iran has repeatedly test-fired long-range ballistic missiles and laser-guided surface-to-surface missiles. In fact, last week, the Islamic Republic tested a new ballistic missile capable of carrying multiple warheads. This is in direct breach of two UN Security Council resolutions and the JCPOA.

Iranian leaders make no attempt to hide this. Instead they are projecting their military power, and flaunting their breach of the agreement and the UNSC resolutions. When his country was unveiling a new missile, Fateh 313, the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani previously pointed out that “we will have a new ballistic missile test in the near future that will be a thorn in the eyes of our enemies.” An Iranian state news agency, Fars, also posted a video of Iran’s underground missile testing facility.

Iran’s ballistic capabilities are one of the most critical pillars of Iran's Islamist and militaristic ideology. Besides managing Iran’s nuclear program and supporting its Islamist proxies, the third important program of Iran’s revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is its ballistic missile program.

Iran possesses the largest ballistic missile program in the Middle East, even surpassing Israel. No country, except Iran, has acquired long range ballistic missiles before obtaining nuclear weapons. This makes IRGC one of the most formidable military institutions in the region. Ballistic missiles can be used for offensive or defensive purposes, but sophisticated missiles are mainly developed as delivery vehicles for nuclear weapons.

Tehran’s ballistic missiles can hit any country in the Middle East. But Iranian leaders are not satisfied with this capability and are looking to expand.

Iran’s ballistic technology has normally grown due to Iran's North Korea ties. But gradually, the Islamist clergy has relied on its domestic infrastructure and adapted new technology to expand its ballistic arsenal.

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The Obama administration is contributing to creating one of the largest threats to US national security in the region by ratcheting up IRGC’s military prowess and rallying more hard-line support behind IRGC in Iran.

Iran Breaches The Nuclear Deal

 

[American_Jihad]

Obama Administration Clears Path For Iran
Give an inch, they take a mile...
December 18, 2015
Joseph Klein

Iran is already in flagrant violation of its obligations under United Nations Security Council resolutions referenced in the nuclear agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), signed on July 14, 2015, by Iran, the five permanent members of the Security Council and Germany. Nevertheless, the Obama administration is making excuses for Iran. It is still on track to reward Iran soon with the freeing up of over $100 billion in frozen assets and the lifting of economic sanctions.

First, the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was not able to complete the full investigation of Iran’s suspected past work on a nuclear explosive device, which was supposed to be a precondition for moving forward with implementation of the JCPOA’s terms. Even with the limited information it was provided, including samplings and photographs taken as a result of Iran’s own self-inspection, the agency concluded that, at least through 2009, Iran had conducted such activities. The agency also stated in its report that Iran had appeared to cover its tracks at its Parchin military site:

“Since the Agency’s first request to Iran for access to the particular location of interest to it at the Parchin site in February 2012, extensive activities have taken place at this location. These activities, observed through commercial satellite imagery, appeared to show, inter alia, shrouding of the main building, the removal/replacement or refurbishment of its external wall structures, removal and replacement of part of the roof, and large amounts of liquid run-off emanating from the building…The Agency assesses that the extensive activities undertaken by Iran since February 2012 at the particular location of interest to the Agency seriously undermined the Agency’s ability to conduct effective verification.”

Despite the unanswered questions and even some evidence of a cover-up, the Obama administration and its negotiating partners closed the book on the IAEA’s investigation of Iran’s past nuclear arms related activities. Whatever may have happened in the past is ancient history, according to the thinking of the Obama administration. It is time, Secretary of State John Kerry said, for the IAEA to “turn its focus now to the full implementation and verification of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).” Yet if the “JCPOA cuts off all of Iran’s pathways to a nuclear weapon,” as the White House claims on its website, why is the Obama administration interpreting the JCPOA in a way that would not apply it to cutting off Iran’s pathway to the delivery of a nuclear weapon?

Whitewashing Iran’s past nuclear arms related work has been followed by utter inaction in the face of Iran’s current launching of ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons. Iran reportedly launched such missiles both in October and last month. Indeed, Iran is not even trying to hide what it has done. It claims that it will do whatever it wants in connection with its missile program, irrespective of existing Security Council resolutions prohibiting such activities. After the October launch, for example, Iran’s Defense Minister declared, “We don’t ask permission from anyone.”

An investigation of the first missile test launch was undertaken by the Security Council’s Iran Sanctions Committee at the request of the United States and its Western allies. Following a briefing on December 15th by the Chair of the Iran Sanctions Committee criticizing Iran’s action as representing a clear violation of existing Security Council prohibitions, members of the Security Council blathered but took no concrete measures to enforce its resolutions.

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, who is presiding over the Security Council this month, complained that “instead of an effective, timely response, the Security Council has dithered.” She added that “we have seen a troubling tendency to look the other way when these measures have been willfully violated in recent months.”

Ambassador Power is right, but she should be taking her complaint to her bosses, President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry. They have used twisted logic to draw a distinction between enrichment and production of nuclear materials for use in developing a bomb on the one hand, which the JCPOA covers, and missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads on the other hand, which the administration argues is not covered by the JCPOA. Kerry has actually gone so far as to agree with Iran’s position that the JCPOA does not prohibit Iran from test firing its missiles, even though the JCPOA itself and the Security Council resolution that adopted the JCPOA(Security Council Resolution 2231 (2015)) refer explicitly to pre-existing Security Council prohibitions still applicable to Iran’s missile program. Those missile-related embargo resolutions are terminable upon certain conditions set forth in the JCPOA, but remain in effect until those conditions are met.

“The issue of ballistic missiles is addressed by the provisions of the new United Nations Security Council Resolution [UNSCR], which do not constitute provisions of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,” Kerry wrote in a letter to Senator Marco Rubio quoted by the Washington Free Beacon. “Since the Security Council has called upon Iran not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology, any such activity would be inconsistent with the UNSCR and a serious matter for the Security Council to review,” Kerry added.

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Iran's testing of ballistic missiles designed to deliver nuclear weapons calls into serious question Iran's intentions going forward in complying with the JCPOA overall. Iran is offering specious legalistic justifications, with John Kerry’s support, for walling off its nuclear capable missile testing and development work from JCPOA implementation and enforcement. This ruse demonstrate once and for all how fatally flawed Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran is proving to be.

Obama Administration Clears Path For Iran