Any agreement that doesn't end in the United States taking physical possession of the nuclear material, isn't worth the paper it's written on. When have assurances from the Iranian regime been anything but expedient lies advanced to allow them to continue doing what they want?
Previously, attempts to perform agreed upon inspections have been denied outright. The US response being little more than an, "Oh well - here, have some more money.'
Trump misjudged how quickly Iran could be brought to heel. Now, he's up against midterm elections, and he's in a panic to declare victory and move on.
As for Israel, there is no agreement that is going to ever prevent them from hammering Hezbollah, or any other Iranian proxy state that attacks them.
What has been stated by the Trump administration is that either the US will take possession of the enriched material OR will supervise its downblending, which would reduce the enrichment levels to presumably within the 3%-5% enrichment range for civilian use.
If the enriched uranium is verifiably downblended do where it is no longer a threat even in radiological weapons, Iran's threat potential to the world is demonstrably reduced.
Either downblending or surrender of the material in its entirety would be a significant step that Obama's JCPOA did not even attempt. Either scenario eliminates Iran's "breakout" potential for nuclear weapons development.
Is President Trump in a "panic"? That is debatable. It's not panic to tell Iran to either sh*t or get off the pot. If the outcome of this is a demonstration that Iran does not actually want peace, the NATO countries especially will be faced with a situation where the Strait of Hormuz will need to be opened by means other than diplomacy.
If this deal is not signed NATO especially starts to run out of excuses for not taking a more forceful stance on reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
Perversely, the countries who should be panicking most of all right now are China and the EU. When strategic petroleum reserve buffers become exhausted, China and the EU are the countries which are going to feel the oil supply shock the most.
While China started out with some of the largest petroleum reserves, they have also been selling out of their reserves to other countries, while not replacing the imports of Persian Gulf crude which account for roughly 1/3 of their total oil imports. That means their reserves are being depleted as a rate faster than the projections which indicated they had a 200+ day reserve of crude.
Assessments of when the buffering gets exhausted are roughly between July and August. Interestingly enough, crude oil contracts for August delivery are not pricing in any resurgent supply shock.
The markets may be presuming that the buffering will extend further than August. If that's the case any prognostication over how this impacts the mid-terms is speculative in the extreme.
We ARE wondering and waiting! As you have noted, Peter, there are all of these bothersome drone attacks, Hezbollah attacks, Israeli attacks, ad infinitum, to mess up the progress.
Then there are the personal aspects. It’s Trump’s 80th birthday today, and Flag Day, so he is likely itching for a triumph to celebrate on his personal milestone day. Meanwhile, leaders within the IRGC see an opportunity to snub him, denying Trump his happy birthday. And financially? Oh, you gotta bet that those IRGC people are not going to agree to anything that takes money out of their own pockets.
I’m not optimistic. I’m hoping that Trump has some more good cards to play, within the next few hours. He does have a winning history of finalizing the Deal!
Drone attacks and reprisals are certainly complications to any peace deal.
However, the biggest hurdle right now may be that the Khamenei regime has publicly released at least THREE different versions of the negotiated Memorandum of Understanding.
Any agreement that doesn't end in the United States taking physical possession of the nuclear material, isn't worth the paper it's written on. When have assurances from the Iranian regime been anything but expedient lies advanced to allow them to continue doing what they want?
Previously, attempts to perform agreed upon inspections have been denied outright. The US response being little more than an, "Oh well - here, have some more money.'
Trump misjudged how quickly Iran could be brought to heel. Now, he's up against midterm elections, and he's in a panic to declare victory and move on.
As for Israel, there is no agreement that is going to ever prevent them from hammering Hezbollah, or any other Iranian proxy state that attacks them.
What has been stated by the Trump administration is that either the US will take possession of the enriched material OR will supervise its downblending, which would reduce the enrichment levels to presumably within the 3%-5% enrichment range for civilian use.
If the enriched uranium is verifiably downblended do where it is no longer a threat even in radiological weapons, Iran's threat potential to the world is demonstrably reduced.
Either downblending or surrender of the material in its entirety would be a significant step that Obama's JCPOA did not even attempt. Either scenario eliminates Iran's "breakout" potential for nuclear weapons development.
Is President Trump in a "panic"? That is debatable. It's not panic to tell Iran to either sh*t or get off the pot. If the outcome of this is a demonstration that Iran does not actually want peace, the NATO countries especially will be faced with a situation where the Strait of Hormuz will need to be opened by means other than diplomacy.
If this deal is not signed NATO especially starts to run out of excuses for not taking a more forceful stance on reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
Perversely, the countries who should be panicking most of all right now are China and the EU. When strategic petroleum reserve buffers become exhausted, China and the EU are the countries which are going to feel the oil supply shock the most.
While China started out with some of the largest petroleum reserves, they have also been selling out of their reserves to other countries, while not replacing the imports of Persian Gulf crude which account for roughly 1/3 of their total oil imports. That means their reserves are being depleted as a rate faster than the projections which indicated they had a 200+ day reserve of crude.
Assessments of when the buffering gets exhausted are roughly between July and August. Interestingly enough, crude oil contracts for August delivery are not pricing in any resurgent supply shock.
The markets may be presuming that the buffering will extend further than August. If that's the case any prognostication over how this impacts the mid-terms is speculative in the extreme.
We ARE wondering and waiting! As you have noted, Peter, there are all of these bothersome drone attacks, Hezbollah attacks, Israeli attacks, ad infinitum, to mess up the progress.
Then there are the personal aspects. It’s Trump’s 80th birthday today, and Flag Day, so he is likely itching for a triumph to celebrate on his personal milestone day. Meanwhile, leaders within the IRGC see an opportunity to snub him, denying Trump his happy birthday. And financially? Oh, you gotta bet that those IRGC people are not going to agree to anything that takes money out of their own pockets.
I’m not optimistic. I’m hoping that Trump has some more good cards to play, within the next few hours. He does have a winning history of finalizing the Deal!
Ha ha ha ha ha! Iran’s leaders sound like something out of a Marx Brothers comedy!
There's little doubt that Rufus T. Firefly would be a better Supreme Leader than Mojtaba Khamenei.
HA HA HA HA HA!
Drone attacks and reprisals are certainly complications to any peace deal.
However, the biggest hurdle right now may be that the Khamenei regime has publicly released at least THREE different versions of the negotiated Memorandum of Understanding.
https://archive.ph/cwSbI
Iran does not appear to be on the same page with Iran over these negotiations. That's not a good sign.